I disagree on the former, but I agree on the later, technology is not a good substitute for consent.
Regarding the privacy:
If you are using a VPN to protect your privacy, then you are effectively transferring your trust from your ISP to your VPN provider. The VPN provider is your new ISP. So you have to make sure you trust the VPN provider more than your ISP.
I don't use VPN when I'm on my home ISP but I do when I'm someplace where I don't control the gateway. My VPN is on a vultr VPS I control (in as much as I can control a VPS), and I do trust vultr (or digitalocean or any of the major VPS providers) more than I trust, let's say, the person who set up the wifi at the holiday inn.