The answer is always "maybe" until you bring your threat model to the table.

I use a VPN to watch IPTV & download torrents without my ISP sending me nasty letters. Mullvad is great for that.

I would trust it in conjunction with Tor to protect me from low-level crimes. I wouldn't run trust either it or Tor, alone or in combination, to run a marketplace the DEA would become interested in.

If your threat model is obscuring your home IP to hide your IP from above board HTTPS sites, a DIY VPN probably is great. If it's to do low level crime, a cheap VPN is probably enough. Anything else, good luck.

A cheap VPS instance + DNS with adblock + self hosted VPN used to be great until around ~5 years ago, when a great many websites (especially streaming sites) just started blocking any IP range associated with a VPS provider. I've given up using VPSes as VPN exit nodes now.