The VPN is "well-done" but "useless"?
You're essentially just shifting the person you're trusting from your ISP to proton.
Downloading copyrighted media is pretty much the only usecase I can think of for such a service, and most people don't do that.
The only other usecase would be to conceal your traffic on a public wifi, but you'd be better served just going through your home connection at that point. Pretty much all decent routers provide you with dyndns+VPN services builtin
VPNs are critical for getting around shenanigans when working out in the world. Especially from sketchy last miles.
The last time I've successfully used a VPN for that was around 2015, but there might be services around (which I just dont use) that can still be unlocked by changing the IP, so that'd be a valid usecase for a few people
Most people don't know how to use that or that it even exists. Hell, I didn't know it existed until right now and I'm decently tech savvy.
> You're essentially just shifting the person you're trusting from your ISP to proton.
Yes absolutely, this is the reason I use a VPN. I have negative trust of every ISP in the USA. They will harvest and sell your browsing history to anyone who will buy it. I have no doubt about that. Some VPN providers probably won't.