[throwaway2037]

Honestly, I don't think the UAE (or any non-democratic regime) is too concerned about people using VPNs. They are more concerns when they are using VPNs to actively destabilse the ruling regime. There is a huge gap here. I would guess that the vast majority of VPN users use it to (1) watch geo-fenced legit content, like Netflix in a different country, or (2) visit banned websites (gambling, crypto, adult content, etc.). Probably very few users are actively engaged in creating and promoting content to destabilse the ruling regime.