I took that as an example, I'm not necessarily endorsing it as the best solution. I personally use the free package.
The bundle with VPN is what I was looking at; for full-featured email, VPN and 500 GB cloud storage from a provider with a good track record doesn't sound bad if you don't mind putting those eggs in one basket.
The community is strong with lots of knowledgeable users with patience to help others out.
The release cycle gets the balance just right between having predictable updates and the latest software. Fedora's testing process is very good, you rarely have problems.
Controversial one: strong financial backing from Red Hat means that Fedora is very unlikely to sell out or turn evil, at least not without a lot of notice.
Having companies involved isn't bad as long as there's enough choice. There are such a huge number of email providers I think there'll always be alternatives if one turns bad - respectfully I don't think your fears are realistic.
Also, paying isn't necessarily a bad thing, for example Protonmail's paid options I think are quite reasonable for what you get and it keeps it private and ad-free, it's a fair deal. I don't think free providers will ever go anywhere but there is the choice.
The only time I'd use Reddit now is if I had a specific question about a specific topic that's only covered there.
As far as browsing for fun goes it's Lemmy all the way, it's so much nicer than Reddit.