I think you are on to something with the customers steering the platform.

I want to use a VPN if I am joining a network that I don't necessarily trust(guest wifi, coffee shop, etc.) I want to use a VPN so my ISP can't sell my browsing history to advertisers. I don't really care about if the VPN provider logs my traffic to make sure no one is abusing the service. I don't even care that much if someone subpoenas my traffic as long as I find out about it.

I wonder if a coop model would be a good fit? It would weed out all of the people who want to use it to hide their torrent traffic, etc. It would be very difficult to acquire the VPN just for the data, as each of the users are the owners. Everyone would have a right to know about subpoenas because they are part owners in the organization.