I have never used a VPN on my personal network/systems for the exact reasons noted. I am not saying I trust my ISP (Cox Communications), but I do believe they are more honest (or less dishonest) than companies that promote their services and business models with marketed "hype" about hiding their users from "law enforcement". To me, that is like hiring the fox to guard the henhouse.
If you use Ethernet to connect to your local network, the closest others can learn of your physical location is your PoP (point of presence). The PoP is where your ISP connects your network to the Internet backbone. In my case, that is about 8 miles away on the other side of town. This is why, when we visit some sites (Home Depot, for example) it might think we live in the next town over, or in a different zip code.
People whine and complain about Microsoft but Microsoft does NOT know our real names (unless we tell them). They don't know our physical addresses, billing information, phone numbers, birthdates, or bank accounts. And they are not even trying to find them. In fact, they work to prevent others from finding that information.
If one really cares about their privacy, they should get rid of their cell phones immediately. Our cell phone providers know where we are standing to within a few yards - to include the aisle of the store we are in! They know where we have been, the direction we are heading and how fast we are traveling. They know who we texted and talked to. And they know what sites we have visited. But on top of all that, our cell phone providers can tie all that directly to us because they already know our real names, mailing addresses, billing information and much much more - especially if we purchased our phones through them because then they have all our credit information too.
If worried about privacy, don't even get me started on social media and other sites (Facebook, Google, etc.). And why don't people realize that Siri and Alexa are "listening" to everything we say in our living rooms 24/7/365?
