> Then I decided to give NordVPN a try, and poof, it worked like a charm. How was this possible? Residential IPs was my guess.

"Guess"? Do they route packets differently depending on the destination, i.e. if you go to one of the whatsmyip websites you'll see a nordvpn-owned IP but to a Disney server the use someone's home connection? Is that what the author says is happening here? I don't know if this is common but, while technically possible, it seems a little weird. I assume the author could just have checked what IP they were exiting from.

Edit: someone else verified it, yes indeed they use residential IP addresses: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21665084