I think this is a bit more like it. I once had a very nice and transparent ISP for some time, due to circumstances. They didn’t keep any logs at all. That’s better than most VPN providers. So any VPN would have been a major downgrade for me. Now I’m with one if the major Geman ISPs. I’m pretty sure they don’t steal my data, because that’s not in the contract we signed. And not like common knowledge that they’d do anything like that. I think I trust them more than a random NordVPN or shady super cheap VPN provider. Sure they’ll do lawful intercept. And there are use-cases for VPNs. But I rather do my online banking without any VPN and the data travelling through 3 other countries, since I have a good alternative. Also makes gaming, videoconferencing etc faster/better.

And a VPN just doesn’t do much in a lot of scenarios. For example if my cellphone provider uses or sells my location data from the cell towers… That’ll happen with or without a VPN. You’d be better off changing providers.