As a , I think VPN’s on a consumer level are used primary to hide illegal activity when it comes to copyright infringement. Business has legitimate uses for them, we use them constantly. But for personal use? I suppose if you are paranoid that your activities are tracked, then sure, but then one has to ask: What are you hiding that you don’t want others to know? Again, I believe most consumers uses them for illegal activities. Things that VPNs are used for the common level are:
VPN+Tor:
Child Porn Rings
Regular Pirated Porn Rings
Region Locking Software
Peer 2 Peer Sharing of copyright infringed data such as TV shows, Movies, Video Games, Music, Books, etc…
Most people I ever met who are technical enough to use a VPN are typically doing illegal activities with them. All of them? No… But I have been a techie for 25+ years and a professional with it for 18+ years… No way can you convince me that the majority use it for legitimate reasons. Some do, yes, but by and far that is not the reason most use a VPN.
Edit ** BTW, if you think you are safe via running one with a privacy policy that doesn’t keep logs, think again… Unless you can personally see the server configuration that logs are disabled, you are putting trust that they are being truthful with it. Secondary, you are assuming those VPN servers are not compromised in some way. With all the information leaks and tools the NSA were discovered to have, I wouldn’t count on being as anonymous as you think.