This isn't about pretending to be James Bond, and "hostile" networks with "government agents" and all their "sigint" coming for your secrets.
In the real world, VPN are mostly used to download copyrighted material. They have a pretty much perfect track record in that regard. Running a cloud VPS, on the other hand, is no more secure than your ISP: they have records, and will share them when ordered to do so.
Just as far as everybody knows, that doesn't mean that it's necessarily true.
There can be a distinct difference between what is believed to be true and what's actually true.
There might very well be entities that has the information, but it's sitting on it for later use.
This is a trade I'm willing to accept. I trust a VPS provider more with those records than I trust either Verizon or Comcast, both of which are motivated by advertising.
Anyone with sigint capability is going to figure out who you are with a VPN. (i.e. Government agents)