A lot depends on where you reside. Some areas just have poor internet and utility service. It’s much more cost effective to run from your home office. To rent the computing power I need for my operation would cost an arm and a leg.
Right, a VPN is going to encrypt / secure the traffic completely when using a Hotel or Coworking / Shared Office Connection. When I am trading / researching, the last thing I want to be worried about is the security of my connection because my brokerage connections are a portion of that traffic. The same argument is or the guy at Starbucks exiting positions on his iPad over their free wifi I think.