I've lived in heavily sanctioned countries and never faced an issue thanks to VPN's. They would go down; Ports may get blocked; Protocols banned... But with a little bit of patience, you were back online for another day, week or sometimes months at a time.

While others were screaming that Wikipedia wouldn't open and Instagram was too slow to use, I was streaming HD Netflix.

It usually seems to be a question of whether you have the knowledge / patience / ... to circumvent, so ultimately a question of whether the software GUI is intuitive / capable enough, to guide the novice user.

Unfortunately most of this software is developed and tested in countries, where none of these issues exists, so most engineers never face such difficulties and thus don't provide adequate solutions.