2. Is this whole article a marketing piece? My understanding is that NordVPN has a somewhat checkered reputation including a data breach in 2018. The linked list[1] of best VPNs also effectively lists NordVPN twice since Nord now owns Surfshark.
Also due to nation specific news sometimes spreading international, some people in regions where there is no major abuse of power of network carriers might think there is. E.g. similar how e.g. people in countries with only a small problem of police violence often think of it as being as bad as in the US due to how many "US sourced" stories they directly and indirectly hear.
Lastly some VPNs try to provide additional security measurements, like blocking connections to known malicious sites and servers. The problem with such services is that they can be abused, and do you trust them? At least I do not trust many VPN providers.
Genuine question, I don’t know. I feel like they are better than any ISP, but still monitor traffic on their networks.
Some how VPNs convinced me using it was sticking it to the man in the same way using cash is.
So I just leave it one. Don't think it affects me meaningfully I don't use websites other than Https nor am I interesting in any way.
Occasionally I get past geo-locked content. Maybe once or twice a month.