I regularly go to imgur via mullvad, exit Netherlands.
Aren't proxies good enough for that purpose?
The user experience differs for proxies.
System wide proxy configuration doesn’t actually always work system wide.
A VPN tends to have more success in encapsulating all application traffic (or all desired application traffic, if you’re so inclined to configure your system)
I do use Mullvad for most web browsing though. But Imgur for example is blocked on it, and it's blocked in the UK, so I need NordVPN if I want to see any images there.
Most people's VPN usage is literally just geolocation restrictions and Nord is really good at that.