This is exactly what it is. Almost everyone I know here in my country, which has not (yet) gone China, who uses a VPN does so exclusively to access sites and se

This is exactly what it is. Almost everyone I know here in my country, which has not (yet) gone China, who uses a VPN does so exclusively to access sites and services that are banned or not reachable here (read porn, p2p, and geo-limited services like Hulu, and Spotify before it was released here etc). No one, absolutely no one, uses it for privacy and security.