This has actually been common advice for some time now, but for some reason over the past couple days a couple news articles have been written about it and now everyone's acting like it's a conspiracy. It doesn't help that the articles are written poorly and don't really explain the situation well, in addition to coming from not trusted sources.
The best thing to do is to get an understanding of what a VPN does and doesn't do, and the pros and cons.
If your concern is your banking passwords being grabbed while you use public wi-fi, you don't need a VPN. This information is already encrypted.
If your concern is your ISP knowing which genre of porn video you watch on pornhub, you don't need a VPN. This information is already encrypted.
If your concern is Facebook reading your messages on Facebook Messenger, you don't need a VPN. They can read these messages whether you use a VPN or not.
If your concern is your ISP knowing that you go to pornhub, defensedistributed, etc. (any domain), then a VPN may be beneficial to you.
If your concern is your ISP seeing the files you torrent, then a VPN may be beneficial to you.
If your concern is websites knowing your rough location, then a VPN may be beneficial to you.
But the biggest thing people need to realize about using a VPN is that it does not completely hide you and what you're doing, it only shifts who has access to it. Anything that the ISP can see when your VPN is turned off, your VPN provider can see when your VPN is turned on. So if you have a reason to distrust your ISP and to trust whichever VPN provider you choose, then go for it, but remember that this information is still available somewhere, it's just a matter of where.
If your concern is your ISP knowing which genre of porn video you watch on pornhub, you don't need a VPN. This information is already encrypted.
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If your concern is your ISP knowing that you go to pornhub, ..., then a VPN may be beneficial to you.
These two don't quite match because without a VPN your ISP can still see your URLs and that's enough to know what you you're looking at, even if they cant see the specific images you've accessed.
Without a VPN, your ISP can see the base level domain that you visit, but nothing further (assuming https is used).
So it the latter example, if your concern is the ISP knowing that you view porn at all, then a VPN will be prevent your ISP from seeing that you went to "pornhub(dot)com"
But if you don't care that your ISP sees that you watch porn, but really don't want them to know that you watch interracial tranny porn, then you don't need a VPN, like the former example. Your ISP will see that you went to pornhub(dot)com, and they'll see how much data you streamed from there, but they wont' know what you streamed from there, or the exact URL to the videos you watched. This information is already encrypted as is (https).
But again, anything that the ISP sees can now be seen by the VPN provider when you use it. So if your concern is nobody being able to find out that you watch porn on pornhub(dot)com, a VPN won't do you any good.
EDIT: I reread your response and I think I see where you confusion is:
With https and no VPN, your ISP can see that you went to "https://www.youtube.com" but cannot see that you went specifically to "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHoqIa1TJ9w" That part after the slash is not visible to your ISP as long as https is used. They can only see the base level domain.
This has actually been common advice for some time now, but for some reason over the past couple days a couple news articles have been written about it and now everyone's acting like it's a conspiracy. It doesn't help that the articles are written poorly and don't really explain the situation well, in addition to coming from not trusted sources.
The best thing to do is to get an understanding of what a VPN does and doesn't do, and the pros and cons.
If your concern is your banking passwords being grabbed while you use public wi-fi, you don't need a VPN. This information is already encrypted.
If your concern is your ISP knowing which genre of porn video you watch on pornhub, you don't need a VPN. This information is already encrypted.
If your concern is Facebook reading your messages on Facebook Messenger, you don't need a VPN. They can read these messages whether you use a VPN or not.
If your concern is your ISP knowing that you go to pornhub, defensedistributed, etc. (any domain), then a VPN may be beneficial to you.
If your concern is your ISP seeing the files you torrent, then a VPN may be beneficial to you.
If your concern is websites knowing your rough location, then a VPN may be beneficial to you.
But the biggest thing people need to realize about using a VPN is that it does not completely hide you and what you're doing, it only shifts who has access to it. Anything that the ISP can see when your VPN is turned off, your VPN provider can see when your VPN is turned on. So if you have a reason to distrust your ISP and to trust whichever VPN provider you choose, then go for it, but remember that this information is still available somewhere, it's just a matter of where.
...
These two don't quite match because without a VPN your ISP can still see your URLs and that's enough to know what you you're looking at, even if they cant see the specific images you've accessed.
Read them carefully.
Without a VPN, your ISP can see the base level domain that you visit, but nothing further (assuming https is used).
So it the latter example, if your concern is the ISP knowing that you view porn at all, then a VPN will be prevent your ISP from seeing that you went to "pornhub(dot)com"
But if you don't care that your ISP sees that you watch porn, but really don't want them to know that you watch interracial tranny porn, then you don't need a VPN, like the former example. Your ISP will see that you went to pornhub(dot)com, and they'll see how much data you streamed from there, but they wont' know what you streamed from there, or the exact URL to the videos you watched. This information is already encrypted as is (https).
But again, anything that the ISP sees can now be seen by the VPN provider when you use it. So if your concern is nobody being able to find out that you watch porn on pornhub(dot)com, a VPN won't do you any good.
EDIT: I reread your response and I think I see where you confusion is:
With https and no VPN, your ISP can see that you went to "https://www.youtube.com" but cannot see that you went specifically to "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHoqIa1TJ9w" That part after the slash is not visible to your ISP as long as https is used. They can only see the base level domain.
and if the isp is selling to google... that can also be a concern for some people.