Edited to say I'm open to suggestions here. Given that Protonmail dropped the ball for $60/year, apparently that's not enough to keep them focused. I'm prepared to pay $100/year for email now.

Any service that won't comply with local authorities risks getting shut down at any moment.

That said, I do have a country perfect for this - lax law enforcement, outside EU but bordering it, no US, Chinese or Russian affiliation, either, very reliable high speed Internet and cheap electricity.

Something tells me as soon as most people see the name, they will refuse to sign up.

What about what I said suggests anything about not complying with the law? All my suggestions to Protonmail were around transparency and user education. They can host it in China if that's the case for all I care. In the modern age, every state is an adversary.

> Something tells me as soon as most people see the name, they will refuse to sign up.

Wouldn't even need to see the name to refuse to sign up. Assuming it's not Switzerland, all the other options seem bad.

Turkey?

Go check ctemplar, it is not without faults, but it seems to be that, or set up your own lavabit/tutanota server

Appreciate the suggestion. Solutions like this also caught my interest: https://thehelm.com

(hn discussion from last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28350466

from years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18238581)