My ISP actively lobbied to be able to harvest (steal) my data. Who do I trust more: the guy who says that they aren't selling my data, or the guy who corrupted my government so that they can actively sell me out (not to mention their monopoly)?

Sure, the first guy could be a liar, but I know that the second guy is a thief.

I don't care about geo-blocking - my only threat model is to keep a scumbag ISP at bay.

Edit: I should add that keeping sites I browse from knowing my IP is also part of my threat model.

Seing how many webstes' TLS is terminated by Cloudflare, you shouldn't state that they don't have your credit card info with such conviction unless you never used it online.

ISP injecting content into your connection is a known story (google "ISP injecting ads" for many results).

For better or worse Microsoft (or other corps) have not done that in recent memory afaik. They might do equally dodgy stuff in other aspects, but they don't tamper with the integrity of your connection (they might sniff it a bit).

It is only a known story in some countries. In others ISPs are held to much higher privacy standards than Cloudflare is.

And often you're paying a nontrivial amount of money to the ISP for the "privilege" of getting injecting ads and tracking injected. This really rubs people the wrong way, justifiably so I think.

I swear VPN privacy is a red herring.

Everyone I know who has a VPN subscription simply uses it to prevent DMCA letters from their ISP when torrenting.

VPN providers with a "no logs" policy simply shrug these off.

I know people that use VPNs 24/7 just for privacy. I would assume there's many more that use them for the reason you described though. Torrents are less useful than ever, piracy is down in general thanks to streaming services and products having moved to SaaS. From what I can tell, the number of people using VPNs merely for privacy alone is growing and a good sign that people feel that strongly about it.

> torrents are less useful than ever

ok I'll bite, let's hear it

Media piracy is less tempting than in 2006 (before streaming) but more tempting than in 2014 (before competition decreased overall and everyone started siloing content as part of their truce).

Server-side control has been making software piracy less and less viable, video games sorta included. And a lot of mainstream games have found ways to make money without charging to buy the game upfront.

Media privacy might be less tempting, but it's been swinging in the other direction (of becoming valid again) for quite a few years.

For some - it was when their ISP started sending their customers scary sounding letters regarding certain downloaded movies and shows.

Some ISPs also needlessly block certain sites (ex. Verizon blocks nyaa.si)

It can go either way. Many ISPs are known to be nasty, but hardly anyone sees the effects of that, so it's hard to tell. I think VPNs market "more security," people mostly blindly buy it, and everyone is happy.

Yeah, to me, a VPN is only a way around geo restrictions.

Article says the VPN gets activated in public networks. Wifi etc. That's one decent use case.

It's not true of the whole world, but in the US, you generally know that your ISP is untrustworthy, while your VPN is a leap of faith.

I thought it was when all the ISPs started basically giving away your private info to the government and repeatedly lied about it