"VPNs opened" was poor wording. Clarifications provided by the guys below seem to match what I remember from listening to talks on Tor by the project's developers.
Operational security and Tor is such an interesting and frankly, quite scary subject. I've mainly used and instructed people on Tor for read-only uses of the web.
For my own needs, masking the origin of an actively participating persona is out of scope. I generally warn people about doing anything that requires sign-on/nicknames etc without very careful research.
I recognize that my lack of a need for serious anonymity for basic political activism etc is a huge privilege. So I try to give back by running a bunch of Tor middle relay myself.
For serious anonymity, I'd really be strict about using a forensically clean Tails USB boot environment, on varying public Wi-FI hotspots with a dedicated laptop that never has touched my regular network. The laptop must not ever be powered on near my house. Lots of systems, like Cisco Meraki business Wi-Fi APs take note of all nearby Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices for 'location analytics'.
Javascript and stuff must be disabled of course. Carrying any cell phone, burner or otherwise is out of the question.
The reasons are many, but for starters, you don't want to be identifiable as the only person at your location making Tor connections, if you're doing something important.
Here are some good points on the subject. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ2OZKitRwc
My approach for promoting Tor to regular people around me is through describing it as a way to do random googling on subjects people don't necessarily want linked back to them, through analytics and ad companies.
I'm personally pretty convinced that insurance companies around the globe are looking pretty seriously at how far they could push their use of intelligence from data brokers. For purposes like identifying people with potential inherited diseases, recreational drug use habits, mental health problems etc.
So, I think Tor is important for all of us.