Not the person you're replying to, but most ISPs and cellular providers log DNS queries and use that to profile you or resell to data brokers.
If you want to have some fun understanding this better, call up (for example) Verizon and have them send you the data they have on you. It's surprisingly detailed, including timestamped logs of every DNS query (in addition to specific profiling data, like "how likely you are to buy a new phone" or "household income", etc).
Comcast started attacking it's customers via MITM about ~2013 or so. Initially it was ads, https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=co... . This would break things like, say, the Steam browser and prevent it from working. I literally had this happen to me. Eventually Comcast changed it's terms of service and violated it's contracts with existing customers and started limiting total data transfer to about 1 TB/mo. When it started doing this it also started MITM injecting JS about your usage into HTTP connections: https://rietta.com/blog/comcast-insecure-injection/
Comcast is the only non-56k ISP available in my area still in 2024. So I use them... but I also have to make sure to protect myself from their attacks. If I did what they're doing I'd go to prison. But some types of legal persons have more rights than human persons.
Comcast intercepts and rewrites your DNS queries to their own servers. I spent hours figuring out why I wasn't getting NXDOMAIN back from 8.8.8.8 until I realized Comcast was MITMing me.
WireGuard is a lot heavier than shadowsocks-libev. shadowsocks-libev is literally under 5MB of ram used and very little CPU. Also very quick to compile and config. WireGuard is a full fledged heavy VPN. Shadowsocks can be used as a simple socks proxy if you want; and that's plenty for stopping Comcast from injecting malicious javascript into my HTTP connections.
If I was in Russia I would be a lot less afraid of USA/Britain/Germany MITM than I would of Putin's agents catching wind of the free flow of information and coming for me and my family and throwing us off the roof or putting polonium in our water supply.
Interesting. I said 'state actor' not 'western actor'.
The state, any state, often employs such tactics to make people believe they are protected, and therefore said people will act more openly. There are a myriad of such known cases, in fact the examples are endless.
So if one is in Russia... beware, for ways to get around blocking which work, may be ways secretly controlled by the Russian state. An example is a VPN service which is secretly run by the state, regardless of where it is incorporated or physically located.
Another example is blocking products which are effective, but letting products which are easily MITM by the state to "work", thereby providing the illusion of security and safety.
These tactics are thousands of years old, the employment of such methods is all that has changed. Make those which you distrust, use methods you control to organize. An example; the pub which is uses for meetings, is actually owned by state sympathizers, who claim otherwise.