For VPN I‘ve used surfshark for the last two years, as they had a good 2 year sign up package (think like £40 total). Was ok, a bit slower than running without but unlimited devices. Was a pain as it failed with Google/Amazon prime etc. either getting a captcha or simply banned ip warning.
Renewal is up and they want 70-odd quid a year now, so have cancelled and got private internet access (PIA) was on offer at £65 for 3 years unlimited devices which seemed a bargain. I also saw they offered a fixed ip for £81 for the 3 years, I took it but didn’t realise I had to choose a specific country to base it in - sort of thought it’d apply to the country of choice for that session.
I went with a London uk address as that made sense so I could run it constantly and not be directed to foreign sites by default (but fancied a U.S. one for streaming, which may have been better if I didn’t run it always?).
I find it’s faster now with vpn than without (e.g. I have 450 Mbps speed, had 280 in my front room, now get 360), plus in theory, I could host a web server using it.
Sadly, in practice I’m wary of streaming using my dedicated ip - I’m sure it wouldn’t be a problem, but if I wasn’t paranoid I wouldn’t need a vpn!