There is a reason why I said "almost" no need ;-) Of course, you can never be sure about anything, but on the other hand, many of these places have been around for upwards of a decade or longer without any major incidents.

I get paranoia; I am the obsessive and compulsive person who literally feels physically gross and uncomfortable if I am not running FDE, etc. I feel that way because I don't like even the idea that someone could be snooping where I don't want them to be. In that sense, everyone has their own tolerance for risk, preferred levels of privacy, etc. I will never judge anyone for being cautious, but I still think a lot of it is still paranoia.

For the average person who doesn't want to receive another abuse report this month because they don't want their ISP to terminate their service, private trackers do tend to solve that part of the VPN equation, at least.