iCloud+ was the best $1 / month custom domain email and email alias service with 100GB of E2EE cloud drive.
Obviously it will be sad to see it enshittified for seemingly no reason.
This allows Apple to see which sets of users share unique Winnie the Pooh memes. They know who had them first, who they sent them to, and when.
The E2EE is useless with such unencrypted metadata leaks.
Fortunately changing Apple account country is as easy as buying US gift card on Amazon and unlike Google they dont mess with account location.
As about encryption I totally agree its pretty meh, but again it's not why I paid my $1.
I do have Apple devices in UK that have E2EE enabled and it works just fine.
Switching account country is super straightforward: cancel subscriptiona, change address to US, top up with apple gift card from amazon us.
No US payment details needed.