It's also sold using the same scare tactics that Anti-Virus is sold. By making people think their connections are insecure unless they use a VPN. So it pulls in a lot of the less tech savvy people who will most likely just use it for Netflix and further encrypting their traffic.
I don't think it's a bubble because countries are trying to implement all these weird laws and monitor the internet more and more. The UK for example wanted to introduce identity checks for consuming Porn. They can't do that when you can VPN to some other country.
Are there any VPN services that actually do this? AFAIK all of them get blocked (i.e. they are known IPs). I've even tried to spin up a Digital Ocean server to route my traffic and Netflix blocked it.
Although I don't mind people practicing safe hygiene, little do they know a VPN has very little to do with big techs ability to actually vacuum up data about them.
But by and large I agree, most people are duped into believing it's somehow more secure.
And I think that number of countries with internet restrictions is growing, not shrinking.
I recently engaged in some infrastructure consulting work for a small startup(10 people). They're 100% distributed, no office, everything operates out of Google Drive, Docs, and Gmail.
One of the first questions they asked was if they need a VPN to keep their corporate communications and file transfers secure.
Well it's either that or make every user an endpoint to go around the IP blacklist like that one provider did, but I can't remember which one.
When nxdomains resulted in me landing on some page from my ISP, I started using a VPN. I'm perfectly fine with my ISP snooping my traffic IFF all they get is gibberish.
Many other benign aspects of life need it too, if the same conveniences are desired with no adjustment.
It's nice if you haven't noticed.