[mindslight]

Yeah, VPNs are certainly not a panacea.

Although last mile wireline providers have surveillance in their genes, having descended from state surveillance organs (eg Ma Bell). They already make good money servicing warrant requests for IP address records, and preemptively keeping a record of customers' communications partners would be extremely cheap. And such "network intelligence" ties right in to fighting against the commodification otherwise driving profit margins on transporting bits to zero.

I'd bet on the infrastructure-less provider that starts off only knowing my rough geographical location and what type of gift card I paid with, and that I can drop any time.

[mirimir]

US gift cards no longer work for non-US purchases. Bitcoins are currently the best option. At least for anything past the first VPN in a chain.