He recommend Proton Mail. However there's been a few comments lately on hn that its privacy isn't really sufficient. I'm wondering what I can use instead? Self hosting seems not only burdensome but likely less secure.
Email is insecure. Protonmail is no less private than any other normal email host. Its convoluted e2ee setup may be more private.
You can selfhost just IMAP storage, and pay an email service provider to receive and store your mail for you, periodically archiving it to
your own long term storage and removing it from the provider.
I also have an old Proton Mail account that is used occasionally. Can't complain about that either.
I don't want my mail being scooped up by Google-scale orgs. Don't really have any other privacy requirements beyond that.
Your mileage might vary.