So your answer to „you can’t generalize vpn good, isp bad because not everyone is living in the UK and US“ is „but what if everyone does?!“ ok

You make it sound like it’s always the case but ISPs in some countries are less centralized/ not on the stock market and rather oldschool so I bet they don’t do anything with your data (yet). Think of utility companies.

If you didn’t already, I would also recommend hit up the guys on the openWRT forum.