[yorby]

VPN providers have just as much insight about your traffic as your ISP... it's just a matter of time before they monetize it... and they both know who you are (unless you are very very very careful, which is almost impossible).

[lagadu]

Negative on that: all a VPN provider knows about me à priori is my IP (and all that comes with that, like ISP and rough location) and which monero payment ID I used to pay it with (which is entirely useless). In contrast an ISP knows everything: my address, name, bank account, contracted service, fiscal number, etc.

If either of them is going to use my traffic data against me, I'd rather it be the former, who I can easily replace within minutes and has less information about me.

[rphlx]

It does not totally invalidate the benefits you mentioned but from what I've heard there are mature commercial services that map consumer IPs to meatspace IDs (name, phone number, address, household income, credit score, etc). The ad industry is both a consumer and a producer of these databases for obvious reasons. Highly likely that multiple levels of law enforcement have access to them as well.

[sk5t]

VPN providers are replaceable in ways in which last-mile ISPs are not, so they have more of an incentive not to trash their reputations.