It's probably more that a lot of people have been convinced that they need a VPN, but they don't. There are use cases, like I trust Mullvad more than I trust some random hotels WiFi. When traveling it can provide a slightly higher base layer of trust.

If you live in a country that restricts your internet access, which to be fair is most these days, a VPN can help. Most of us just don't care about those restrictions or they are more easily circumvented using a 3rd. party DNS. Also if you're in country like Iran or Russia, you really need to trust your VPN provider and strange corporate structures and staff sharing really isn't helping in that respect.

For the average person, no you don't need a VPN. You might need one for a few days or week per year, if you travel and need to access your bank or corporate infrastructure (in that case your employer most likely have their own VPN). VPNs are a niche business, but online influencers have convinced a lot of people that they need a VPN for everything, which simply isn't the case for the vast majority of us.