They're after views, that's always the end goal. More views=more revenue. It's the youtubers that are after engagement, because engagement is a good measure of something that will get a lot of views and thus gets pushed by the algorithm.

Google wants money. Views get them money. Engagement helps predict an offering that will get more views, and thus they should feed it to more people. They're right also, it is an accurate predictor. If we don't want them to do what makes them the most money, that is our responsibility to fix, not theirs.

If you ever find yourself in a pinch and are absolutely needing a VPN for any reason and are willing to spare a couple bucks, I highly recommend mullvad. They were highly approved of on /r/piracy, and they have all the features top-of-the-line VPNs do: doesn't keep logs, multiple devices per account, servers in dozens of other countries, yadda yadda.

But the reason I liked them most was that they didn't operate on a subscription service. You simply bought however much time you wanted, in increments of months at $5/month, and you used it. Your credit card or paypal was not on file, you simply buy time and ran through it. If you wanted more time, you bought more time. They even accepted cash in the mail, which sounds absurd to me. Whenever I need a VPN urgently, I just chuck them $5 and I've got 30 days time added to my account, and then I do whatever I need to do. Very convenient.

But you're right to never trust free VPNs. They gotta make money somehow, and you know what they say, if they're not selling a product to you, they're selling you as a product.