I mean yeah, i could dig up my old computer and set it up as a vpn. That doesn’t make it helpful though, it is still in my name / using my home connection.

When i say vpn i mean a realistic alternative to existing offers, including a variety of locations and acceptable speeds, as well as the reasonable expectation that my data stays private as long as i don’t engage in wildly illegal activities.

Now for lemmy, the instances are either funded through donations such as the one i use, or are so small that the proprietors can afford to pay for running one themselves. A lemmy instance also doesn’t need to provide broadband speeds and global locations to its users.