If you're upgrading to a paid account, isn't that even worse than the initial step in terms of anonymity? I get that they need to make money to survive, but this requirement isn't displaced by e2ee - it provides a misleading and false sense of security.

Anonymity toward state actors is compromised in either situation, whether phone verification or payment validation.

Doubt I'm the only one who thinks this, but the value proposition of their service is cancelled by their stated terms, which at least they make available. I have similar doubts about the veracity of claims by VPN providers (including mine) in terms of not keeping logs.

tor remains the only usable anonymising method with a decent track record. It's a shame Protonmail discriminates against it.