Company who's blog post this is ain't bad either if you're looking for a non-ecosystem VPN. Proton is trying to be Nord and create an ecosystem of products that store all your most private data, all under the umbrella of 1 company which defeats the whole point of a VPN who should have no data on you (not even an email).
I feel like it's Nord who's trying to be Proton but worse, no? Nord had just the VPN until recently, unlike Proton which was already trying to build an ecosystem (although they did speed up the new product drops significantly in the past few years). And unlike Nord, at least Proton actually has proper zero-access encryption and stuff, and they seem to know what they're talking about rather than just relying on influencer marketing.
Proton used to have mail, they they launched a VPN. Then cloud storage, then password manager, then docs + calendar, then wallet, now also AI and MFA app. They're following literally in Nord's footsteps, all Nord needs to do is launch a mail service and the circle is complete.
Proton is doing influencer marketing now too btw. Parallels are uncanny. All this while claiming to fight Google/big tech, but essentially offering the same products that store the same personal data.
PS. I'm from the company who's blog post this is.