I agree with a lot of what you say.
A Google VPN might well provide a valuable service to some, even many, people. It’s important to know and understand what it’s doing though so you can determine for yourself what constitutes a malicious action. That is not the same for everybody. It’s clear to me that some tech companies, Google being an example, are not as transparent as they should be in disclosing what data they harvest, how they actually use that data and what the implications might be. That makes the determination difficult.
I agree with you on the anti-Apple campaigning. If find it a distraction to their goal and in some ways hypocritical. Proton clearly benefit hugely from the user base and technology base that Apple have built and they, of all people, should understand how valuable that is as they struggle to do the same thing. They should be negotiating in good faith, not jumping on a bandwagon driven by resentment.
Personally, I think Proton should stick to mail and focus their energies in getting that service to be a real competitor to Google and Microsoft in both the consumer and business markets. Right now, it is moving very slowly and is missing many key features that prevent widespread adoption. I think they are too thinly spread and run the risk of having a broad set of promising, but incomplete and uncompetitive products that remain a niche for a while before being dropped for the next promising thing.