You have to consider the threat through the whole request.
You start on your computer and jump to the VPN instead of the destination website. Is the VPN hosted in a different country that refuses to work the US? Do you trust them to not do anything else shady? Do you trust that the encryption you are using will not be broken before your death, because the NSA is logging traffic to other countries, especially ones that won't cooperate with the US.
Then you have to hop from the VPN to the destination website anyway, is that jump really more secure than the jump from your device directly to the destination? Is the destination site tracking you?
VPNs are for moving your traffic off the airport network or Starbucks wifi, not defeating a nation state.
You start on your computer and jump to the VPN instead of the destination website. Is the VPN hosted in a different country that refuses to work the US? Do you trust them to not do anything else shady? Do you trust that the encryption you are using will not be broken before your death, because the NSA is logging traffic to other countries, especially ones that won't cooperate with the US.
Then you have to hop from the VPN to the destination website anyway, is that jump really more secure than the jump from your device directly to the destination? Is the destination site tracking you?
VPNs are for moving your traffic off the airport network or Starbucks wifi, not defeating a nation state.