People like to hate.

I'm coming from a position and stance similar to yours, a paying customer for many years, etc... I can completely see criticism of the proton platform for various reasons, such as some feature sets, your mentioned slow to market on what seems like priorities to the community, the security stance of eggs in one basket, etc... I think proton deserves honest criticism on many fronts, and also aren't the answer to everybody's threat model. Fine.

The rest? It's hate. It's not even stance or opinion. Its hate. The smallest things are taken and the reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Andy Yens comments haven't been THAT bad compared to the political people he gets associated with. But okay, I can see taking the small concept and saying it's evidence of a bigger picture behind HD scenes. But then there's hate. But proton set up their organization to prevent a single person (like Yen) from dominating and taking them in the wrong direction, but that gets ignored. Just hate. Let's talk about a news article where out of context proton "gave away" user info (when in reality it was all the fault of the user). But we'll ignore all the times proton didn't give up information they were asked for. Because that goes against the hate squad.

Again, if somebody doesn't like proton, good for them. Don't use them. Think they are the devil, good for them advise people as to why and to stay away from their products. But most of the hate comments aren't expressing any of that. Its just hate, and if you don't see it too then you are stupid and deserved to be hated too. That's the vocal majority. That doesn't mean its the majority opinion, it just means the loudest voices are saying that.

Sorry, my answer is a bit of a rant saying I agree with you. I'm sure many will disagree and that's fine. But opinions are allowed to be shared both ways.