I'm a software engineer, and I am well educated in networking, etc.

I never use a VPN. There is no reason to use VPNs "always". The only reason to wear a mask is to hide your identity. What do you have to hide?

Some people use VPNs in the hopes of hiding their browsing activity from the government or some such nonsense. The gov't already knows everything it needs to know about you. Either you don't matter as much as you think you do (you're not the main character, you're just an "extra" in the background) or they have everything they need already and haven't chosen to "act" for whatever reason.

But either way, using a VPN changes nothing. Those VPNs can all be subpoena'd to tell the court who used IP address 34.35.225.5 at 6:05 PM on 12/9/25. Then they get your identity/real IP address, which they can use to track you down.
Real security professionals know this. VPNs are a palliative, a placebo. They are an ILLUSION of anonymity, of invincibility.

Those VPNs require payment from you, and some kind of ID. Otherwise, actual terrorists (if they exist) could use VPNs and be completely safe from surveillance from 3 letter agencies. You really think that loophole exists? My sweet summer child!

A software engineer is not a network security professional. My brother is. Covid especially taught us not to trust big corp. My Internet provider is a big corp.