Yeah, I've not had issues with my VPN yet, except for on private trackers, but a lot of the time it does just depend on the VPN and whether the site has blocked it. Residential proxies are an option, but they're generally more expensive and limited.
I sort of get the feeling that the web in general is sort of on its way out. Like everything's getting too commercialised and locked down. Even the small sites are all behind the Cloudflare racket. Maybe we'll see a resurgence back to things like IRC and BBSes, but that's probably just wishful thinking ^^'7