This is true, although there's still a very large risk element here. The average person is not likely to be able to safely determine which VPN providers are trustworthy or not. They also aren't likely to understand their limitations, i.e. they don't grant you perfect anonymity, they don't grant you perfect immunity, they may or may not capture the traffic that you intended or thought.

In that case, is it really a good thing for VPN internet provider usage to be on the rise? All we're seemingly doing is handing people more guns to potentially shoot themselves in the foot with.

ISPs, for all of their transgressions, tend to be registered and regulated companies and that makes it much easier to at least find someone to target with legal action if needs be. The bar might be low but there are some standards to which they have to adhere to. Many VPN providers are nameless and faceless "organisations" with little-to-no regulation or responsibility. It's difficult to know if they take your privacy seriously, whether they are taking adequate precautions not to log, to not leak data or to adequately secure their systems.

Hell, it's entirely possible that your VPN provider is actually just an FBI honeypot on the lookout for people who are only actually using a VPN service because they have something to hide. How would you tell if they were?

I just don't really buy the argument that having different incentives means they are any less likely to be nefarious or negligent.