Just found your article. Made me glad I moved some things at least to ProtonMail a while ago. I know others have written about this over time but I'd be curious to get your take on what's changed since then.

Speaking of not having a username, a few VPN services, according to https://www.safetydetectives.com/best-vpns/ (where That One Privacy Guy now is) , accept prepaid debit cards or even bitcoin for payments, so they really don't have to know who you are!

P.S. I found your old article doing a search for medium.com entries to learn more about private messaging there.