I find it useful when I need to circumvent regional restrictions, and perhaps when torrenting the odd "linux ISO".
For anonymity it's not worth it, imo. Tor is free and has more protections for that kind of thing provided the speed bump is something you can stomach.
As for always on VPN, if you configure VPN on your router or have it start and always stay on from the very beginning, that's a good way to never expose your physical IP to anyone. But I've found this rarely happens in practice, there are always slip ups and so on. I'm not doing it at the moment.
For anonymity it's not worth it, imo. Tor is free and has more protections for that kind of thing provided the speed bump is something you can stomach.
As for always on VPN, if you configure VPN on your router or have it start and always stay on from the very beginning, that's a good way to never expose your physical IP to anyone. But I've found this rarely happens in practice, there are always slip ups and so on. I'm not doing it at the moment.