I use Astrill VPN on 2 laptops (Mac and Win), a VM running inside the Mac, on the iphone as well. My GF uses it on her iphone, 1 Mac laptop and 2 desktops for work. We share 1 subscription for 5 simultaneous connections and it works for us very well for almost a year.
Personally I use WireGuard mode so it is a full tunnel - with Smart Mode it will use Chinese apps/websites locally and not going across the globe, but I don’t use it as it changes the language of my MS Edge New Tab page to Chinese and search engine to Chinese one. My GF usually only uses OpenWeb for Browser HTTP/HTTPS tunneling also with Smart Mode as she can read Chinese and prefers local news instead of the ones from US lol - to each its own
At work we rely on sometimes big data uploads/downloads via OneDrive we share, never had issues with Astrill (it does work without it too though, Microsoft Onedrive is only partially blocked by the Great Chinese Firewall)
We use it for Netflix streaming (not 4K though), I also use it for torrenting and playing Steam games (not MMO) that sync save state to the cloud. I think lag would kill MMO experience, so maybe for that VIP would be required, I guess.
Some websites will require you to do reCAPTCHA or CLoudFlare checkbox, but doesn’t bother me too frequently, also it depends on servers you choose, I usually run on named-city servers instead of “For China” servers,
I think I paid $200 or $250 for a year sub so, that’s like $20/mo IIRC, we don’t use VIP. There is plenty of servers to choose from, so if something slows down just hop onto the next one or change the city, doesn’t bother me.
I never used any proxy solution like Shadowsocks with data caps, I would need to pay a lot for it with torrenting and everything I do. Not really interested in them, but I get that it might be the way to go for minimal lag instead of tunneling
In summary, I found this VPN to be pretty fast (server dependent and time of day/peak dependent too) and very reliable on desktops/laptops over wifi or wired.
On iphone the app is limited and has issues that require you to change server very frequently or toggle OFF/ON to make it work, sometimes annoying when it freezes and need to restart the whole phone, otherwise no Internet lol
I tried a few other VPNs and nothing else worked for me at all. In summary the basic sub works for us and is pretty cheap (considering all devices we use it on) and mostly reliable, stability depends on the server and its load.
Hope it helps