Yes, some of them are just there to re-sell your usage info. I'm shopping around again myself (have been using ExpressVPN, but looking to switch) and Mullvad looks good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullvad
I've definitely seen man-in-the-middle stuff happening in hotels, and using in-the-store wifi on my phone. Usually my mail app(s) will start complaining that they can't verify the mail server identity. It's not crazy to be using a VPN on those sorts of networks.