Always on a VPN. My house sends all traffic out through one, and I VPN back to my house when I’m out which puts me on the same connection.

Usually on a needed basis. Some pages are blocked where i am and those do get the exception for my regional locking hatred.

Always on out of spite

I keep mine on almost always, runs fine so I usually don't bother turning it off.

I trust my ISP more than I trust a VPN. I only need a VPN when I need to appear like I'm in another country. That said, I'm very careful about who my ISP is, I have a choice in who my ISP is, and I pay more for that privilege, and I understand a lot of people don't have that luxury.

I have nonpublic services I host at home so I VPN home anytime I'm out.

I have a docker container for my Linux ISOs with a VPN.

Always on for everything

I always had it on, and got banned from my favorite game server for possible alt-accounts. It's a tight-knit community and the admin fixed it for me a few times until it got annoying. Now I start my game with a shell script that turns off the VPN via CLI before loading so I don't get banned over and over. 90% of everything else goes through a VPN, not because it has to, but because I want my ISP to be blind by default, at least to the degree I can make that happen

i used to use it 24x7 before but now i just turn it on when i need it since it makes my internet significantly slower.

I use it 24/7 even though I've heard I'm not supposed to. It makes it really obvious to my ISP that I'm using a VPN provider for literally all my traffic.

I think for now I can get by because I'm shacked up with my parents and so the house is producing all kinds of Internet traffic. Mine will still be obviously going to an ISP but it's at least not entirely just my ISP.

I'm sure intel agencies would have their ways to figure things out though. VPN itself is not total anonymity.

Mullvad on 24/7 except when some things break. My bank app wont allow logins with it for example so i switch it off temporarily for that.

Mullvad. Always on. Wireguard to access home network remotely

On when I need it. Otherwise I’m clicking captchas all day.

Mullvad on a router, so always on, because it's nobody's business who I am and what I do and where I do it. In the rare case that I need to use a service that blocks Mullvad, I just use my phone that has their toggleable app.

If you have a few things that work better without or don't need the VPN, like some games, a good VPN will have a tunneling feature to let that one thing through while staying on for everything else.

if i paid for one i would have it on (if i pay for it i might as well use it + more privacy). but, since i just have proton free tier, i turn it on whenever "This content is not available in your region" shows up

I tend to do only when needed as it conflicts with some of the things I need to access locally on my network.

Depends on where I am and what I'm doing. When on work travel, I VPN home. When I'm home I VPN to work. Outside of that, I don't really use VPNs.

If I really want to cover my tracks, I have other means and methods

Firefox is routed through the VPN 24/7, everything else as needed.

My day job periodically kills the VPN. I reconnect when next I notice it. It stays on for like 3 days at a time.

But, since I need it for the day job, the answer to your question is "yes" as in both.

When I used Proton or Mullvad I usually had to switch it on and off when needed because of so many issues with sites/games/etc. blocking me. However, the last deal I picked up was for NordVPN and that one I've been able to leave connected at all times without any issue.

I don't use a vpn at all, because I don't need it.

It offers me zero benefit, so why would I ever want one? Just like I don't use cloud storage or a million other services.

Honestly never used one.

(Which apparently is worthy of disdain?)