I pay for VPN service with a credit card in my name that I have had for years. I'm not trying to hide the fact that I occasionally use a VPN. The ISP sees the tunnel, the websites I visit see the VPN IP, netflow logs the time, duration, bytes transferred, etc. It's no secret that I am using a VPN.
IMO, most VPN users are normal people, like me, who just want privacy from online advertisers and data aggregators. I do not want or expect privacy from the VPN provider. After all, I connect to their VPN service from my home ISP (which has an IP) that has an account in my name too.
No matter how you try to hide your payment for the VPN service, they know who you are.
IMO, technical people often 'go too far' and become unreasonable about these things (especially security people). They have lost touch with real-world threat models and use cases. James Mickens has a good short paper on this called 'This World of Ours' https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf
IMO, most VPN users are normal people, like me, who just want privacy from online advertisers and data aggregators. I do not want or expect privacy from the VPN provider. After all, I connect to their VPN service from my home ISP (which has an IP) that has an account in my name too.
No matter how you try to hide your payment for the VPN service, they know who you are.
IMO, technical people often 'go too far' and become unreasonable about these things (especially security people). They have lost touch with real-world threat models and use cases. James Mickens has a good short paper on this called 'This World of Ours' https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf