If they really cared, they'd made it simple to default to showing images from people in your contacts, and not otherwise.

However, because they're in bed with the advertisers, they make it so you either choose a degrading email experience for all your emails, or allow yourself to be tracked.

This comment misses the mark a bit. Gmail actually competes with spam emailers - then run their own ads inside your inbox and would rather you click on those. They also sort promotions and spam out of your primary inbox pretty robustly.