1. nothing free will ever be best, because you are the product

2. best heavily depends on usecase, and not all usecases are covered by the "best choices"

for piracy, you need vpns that dont keep logs, and allow port fowarding(a feature not all vpns support)

for privacy from governments, especially western ones, people want vpns hosted in countries outside of the five/nine/fourteen eyes alliance

for example, a common VPN choice that covers both usecases is Proton VPN, as i believe its swiss hosted, does not keep logs and has a form of port fowarding. someone using a vpn for privacy might not care about the use for piracy or vice versa, so they may spend time looking for vpns that give more value for their usecase.