There must be more to it than that. I use PIA VPN on reddit all the time (for at least the last 5 years or so), from various european endpoints, and I'm still fine there. I'm not shadowbanned as people do reply to my comments. The account is a decade old though so I assume that they factor account age into it as well.

I've also resolutely ignored the email verification pop up for years so I'm kind of surprised I'm still on it.