Agree.I think I'll never spend my hard-earned money on a paid certificate but I'd very much like to hear your comments, whether you use paid or unpaid certificates, about the Email Certificate business and certificates for domains.
+1IMHO it's (just another) idiot tax.
A self signed cert is every bit as effective at encrypting the traffic (and verifying your identity) and there is a very much lower chance of your keys being leaked/stolen/reissued to an impersonator etc.
I thnk the ONLY advantage of a *commercially supplied* cert (paid for OR "free") is inclusion in the default trust chain of browsers/clients used by "the public" (assuming your chosen providers 'trusted' status isn't arbitrarily revoked at any point).
Google has lots of other problems. Whenever you travel, even short differences and your IP address changes, they lock your email account because it might be Mallory, instead of Bob or Alice.
Proton Mail allows you to use Tor, and now offers Proton VPN for both free and paid for accounts.