I always felt a VPN is a false sense of security, and peoples understand of security is fucking shit anyway.
If you are hiding from advertising and the ever increasing surveillance capitalism, then a VPN is not much use. You need to understand how they track, and it will involve you modifying your actions. Like not openly talking about your personal details on public webforums, using non-descript email accounts with only a single use to cover any leaks, not to mention outright avoiding things like gmail or facebook. My point is a VPN can still expose you quite easily, they moved on from strict IP tracking years ago. They still make use of it, but its not the only tool nor the more effective ones. Sadly they moved on past that being the only choice a long time ago.
If you want to hide from government and law enforcement agencies, well a VPN has little use at all. If you piss the state off enough, they can mount a formidable amount of pressure on a corporation. Remember when WikiLeaks fucking ripped a hole in the fabric of diplomacy? yeah they might of the USA, European Nations and a handful of others all of a sudden bore that fucker into nothingness. They fucking run most of South America, a personal black slush fund for the CIA to exert Western Power across the globe. You really think some fucking Swedish startup from some sensative lads is going to hold up against that fucking beast? No chance. You are on your own and thats for the best anyway.
I mean already in this thread, people have spoken about how many VPNs are likely honeypots or in somewhat compromised, and I am sure some are. You can never tell which. The western intelligence apparatus really is something to behold.
Strangely, the best way to be online is as little as you can. As a fat Soprano might say "no more fucking phones, everything we do is face to face and no more fucking talking on phones. Feds could be listening"