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In fact, many times they're even asked to do so by moderators when they think it'd be a good idea.

Is it a good idea when the topic at hand is OP's personal beef with a merchant? It's a bad faith posting given the fact that the error message mentions "masking one's location or identity". OP mentions being a "Signal user since 2015" in a comment here but doesn't address the VPN possibility in the linked blog rant so I'm calling it here.

What's technically or morally wrong with using a VPN, again?

Nothing morally, but using a VPN, while not perfectly anonymous, correlates strongly with other anonymization measures taken by users. Users signing up with those IPs are more likely to be doing so anonymously.

There's nothing wrong with using it to hide your browsing habits or reduce tracking, but when you're signing up for cloud services, you're presumably already supposed to be providing your identity at that point, so that use case is moot. Someone could be stealing your identity and using it to sign up as well. Imagine the crimes you could be framed for in those situations.

It would be hard to keep the service cheap if there were a greater risk of bad actors using it.

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