There's a fourth use-case: occasionally, gaming. I play Final Fantasy XIV, an MMORPG - apparently, supposedly, the peering connection between AT&T and FFXIV's

There's a fourth use-case: occasionally, gaming. I play Final Fantasy XIV, an MMORPG - apparently, supposedly, the peering connection between AT&T and FFXIV's US ISP (NTT) was particularly bad. [1] This manifested as pretty severe connection issues for AT&T customers playing FFXIV. Except, it was a chronic issue that would only flare up when that particular connection point was stressed. One of the easiest workarounds? Hop on a VPN. That's one example. Anecdotally, I have a few friends that toggle VPNs on and off when they encounter "network weather" in games. Personally, I'm a bit skeptical they're truly so often mitigating problems by toggling a VPN (instead of, say, just waiting a couple minutes), but hey, they swear by it. [1]: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/482155-Bad-lag-again-with-NTT-s-NA-server-network/page2 https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/482155-Bad-lag-a...