[resfirestar]

The proposition for VPN or proxy services makes most sense when you don't trust your home/mobile ISP (a good portion of the world is in this situation) and for public wifi, which is increasingly managed by companies like Zenreach and Facebook with the goal of silently tracking where users go to provide "insights" for business owners and targeted advertising.

Simply connecting to these hotspots opens you up to location tracking unless you're able to randomize your MAC address, but after you connect it seems like common sense to prevent these companies from harvesting your browsing data as well.