Why did the devs remove the ability to choose a specific country on free with the latest update?

"Every other" is quite a bold statement, let's say Proton is one of the few that collects no data, no logs, etc.

As a paid Proton user, the recent change doesn't affect me anyway. However, there is still a way for free users to select any server they want, rather than switching to another free VPN that doesn't offer the same level of privacy and security as Proton.