Security difference between connecting to a public wifi, private hotspot and VPN?

Sorry but I can't wrap my head around this. I do understand that in some instances even just letting your ISP record a piracy website might be a problem, while other times it'd be a malicious access point forcing HTTP over HTTPS, however I can't understand who can see what assuming a non-compromised device.

For example, would a VPN hide visited websites and content to ISP? Would a mobile data hotspot hide only content?

Thank you