If you throw money at the problem, you’d still have a VPN.

Heavily depends on what "outlawed" means.
I am certainly capable of implementing low cost workarounds to purely technical anti-VPN-measures, but certainly would not risk going to jail just for trying it.

Essentially boils down to the old saying:
"If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy."

The moment billionaires coopted the internet was when it went downhill. They knew the threat it posed, the vision of the early cypherpunks, and made sure the internet wouldn't do that to their power.

Decentralization and accessibility are good things. Elitism and exclusionary practices do nothing good.