so ISPs have apparently been throttling gaming traffic for years and a VPN actually fixes it and i only found out last week
okay i feel kind of dumb for not knowing this sooner but hear me out
net neutrality in the US has been a complete mess since 2018. repealed, partially reinstated in 2024, then challenged again. the result is a patchwork where certain ISPs, especially cellular and fixed wireless quietly deprioritize gaming traffic during peak hours
here's the key thing: because gaming traffic is unencrypted, your ISP can actually identify it and throttle it specifically. not your whole connection. just the gaming packets. you might have 300 Mbps fiber and still get 180ms ping on a Friday night because your ISP is selectively sandbagging game server traffic
a VPN encrypts everything so your ISP literally cannot tell whether you're gaming, streaming or just browsing. the throttle can't be applied to traffic it can't categorize
i tested this myself last weekend. same connection, same server, 9pm on a Saturday. without VPN: 67ms. with Proton on WireGuard connecting to a nearby server: 41ms
that's not placebo. that's ISP throttling being bypassed in real time
obvious caveat: if your ISP isn't throttling you this won't help and might add latency. but if your ping is mysteriously worse at peak hours just try it. takes 2 minutes