Im not a fan of proton, but this trend of blaming corps for individuals poor opsec (paying with a method linked to their real identity) is pretty lame.

Do people using these services actually expect a corporation to break laws or violate court orders on behalf of their users?

Proton regularly releases very clear info about how often they comply with legal orders, this isnt a secret and its certainly not protons fault that activists had poor opsec.