It’s not that simple though. VPN providers in most cases have been externally audited not to store any logs of user activity, meaning they couldn’t comply with government requests of this nature. Generally, their entire legitimacy as companies depends on trust, meaning they have much stronger incentives to actually keep user data private than an ISP does. Of course I agree that using a VPN is no privacy silver bullet, but it’s not like they have zero privacy benefits either.
It’s not that simple though. VPN providers in most cases have been externally audited not to store any logs of user activity, meaning they couldn’t comply with government requests of this nature. Generally, their entire legitimacy as companies depends on trust, meaning they have much stronger incentives to actually keep user data private than an ISP does. Of course I agree that using a VPN is no privacy silver bullet, but it’s not like they have zero privacy benefits either.