What's wrong with the free tiers of, for example, ProtonMail¹ or Tutanota²?

[1] https://protonmail.com/

[2] https://tutanota.com/

Nothing's wrong with the free tiers, but for many people the average storage would put them into a paid plan after a while so I don't really consider these free in the same way.

I see some issues with some of the pros: pros: a more private inbox

How does one evaluate that, especially someone not technical?

pro: harder for govt to snoop I have worked for 3'ish ISP's over the years...every single one had NSA core router traffic mirror port to NSA clusters. These ISP's typically get cash in return for their service. So I don't think you can say a smaller shop would be more trusted to even not let the govt in to snoop.

honestly the more i think about it..I am probably safer with a free gmail

That's pretty crazy to hear. Is that public knowledge? What's being routed to NSA clusters? All content such as emails?

I don't see how they can claim they're "more private", and I don't mind seeing unobtrusive ads in response for good service. So I'm out.

Edit: I just checked and Gmail doesn't have ads and I didn't even notice

If an algorithm is not scanning the contents of your emails, and potentially leaking/saving their entire contents outside your account, isn't that more private by definition?