I also do not like subscriptions but sometimes they are a necessary evil (like an electricity bill).
I’d also rather be “stuck” in a subscription but free to move to a better service rather than sit there with a service I do not like. And with the burden of needing to then get a subscription after paying a lifetime. 
The more you go into an ecosystem, the harder it is to get away from it.
I value (freedom of choice + better specific tool for 1 given task) more than some savings.
Nothing is eternal and things will go to shit at some point, hence I’d rather not have hard ties and avoid putting all eggs into 1 single cozy basket.
For all the things that can be done DIY or can be done for free without privacy compromises then sure! But software + politics + companies’ mood might change in 1 year, maybe 5 or maybe 10.
It’s easier to drop out from Addy and move to [the new hot FOSS service in town] that way.
If you really don’t care that much and would rather prefer saving money with an all in one solution, then go all in on the Proton ecosystem for sure!
There is a reason they are a quite successful business so far: convenience. 
But yeah, I’ve had my fair share of walled garden with Apple.
I’m quite allergic to the idea of “ecosystem” as of lately.
And prefer to not have such a thing. But again, it’s just me.
Maybe give a quick trial to Proton for 1 month or alike before going all in!
If you’re happy enough, then sure. Simple login was just not cutting it for me…
Here same:
- their VPN is decent enough but as Rtings recently shown, they are not the best in their own domain
- they also do have quite some KYC overall given that you do have an account under the same roof
- are not the best in terms of their policies + company practices
- I’d rather pay for the best service in their own domain (for the few critical ones)
- the free VPN is very basic but if it’s fine for you, why not?
- Proton Drive also is not as flexible as I wanted it to be for me
- too restrictive as of how I access the data (no WebDav for example)
- not as refined of an experience as I wanted
It’s again very personal regarding your threat model + budget + needs.
I’ll be always vouching for the fact that “lifetime [anything]” is quite a big bait.
Especially as seen in the past years: not a lot of companies are trustworthy. Hence yearly plans are still the way to go IMO.
Yes. Trade-off of anonymity in favor of portability/ownership.
I would argue that you could also just skip the entire Aliasing system if all you need is a clean mailbox + brand identity because you can also create on the fly usernames.
A bit more work but probably doable (if not using the catch all).