Yes, to a degree. A VPN protects you from an attacker on the same WiFi network as you and that's about it.

Most assaults on your privacy don't happen like that, and for the most part the attacks that do happen like that are stopped by the website using https and proper modern security.
The benefit of the VPN is that it puts some of that protection under your control, but only as far as your VPN provider.

A VPN is about as much protection from most cyber attacks as a gun is.

They're not a security tool, they're a networking tool. They let you do some network stuff securely, and done correctly they can protect from some things, but the point of them is "this looks like a small, simple LAN, but it's not".

It's much easier to package and sell network tools than security tools, and they're much more accepted by users, since security tools have a tendency to say "no" a lot, particularly when you might be doing something dumb,and users hate being told no, particularly when they're doing something dumb.