Also it is cheap, easy, non-controversial domestically in the US, and ethically coherent with American values.
Do you mean that VPN will blur the nipples when you watch pictures of classical paintings through it?
No, it means they will send a SWAT team to your house if you use it to download a movie.
I don't think European countries have been shy or sneaky about their restrictions on online content.
I'm a lifelong US citizen and burst out laughing at this. What values? What coherence?
Do you mean the NSA man-in-the-middleing all that traffic and leaving a backdoor for Mossad? Imagine the most despicable possible invasion of privacy and the most reprehensible shadow oppression and manipulation of an uneducated populace you can conjure up.
Now imagine something way worse than that. This is America.
Where critical late night shows get cancelled because a small group of Trump-aligned people control most media?
Seriously, the world is looking in amazement how all the talk about free speech and democracy was purely performative.
The US becoming Hungary (or maybe Russia).
By law.
So, not so much free speech.