[MadnessASAP]

Historically, VPN (Virtual Private Network) was a LAN like network overlaid on the internet devices could communicate with each other as if they were connected to the same network.

One of the possible configurations you could have in such a setup is one or more gateways to the internet. Much like the gateway on a traditional LAN, traffic bound for the internet would first go to the gateway.

In modern times, when people say VPN they're typically referring to a VPN with only a gateway and nothing else that all traffic gets routed through. NordVPNs Meshnet would be more similar to what a traditional VPN actually is, a means for separate devices to communicate as if they were local.

As NordVPN correctly points out, this is not new, not what most people using their VPN service are looking for, and for those that are, they're better served elsewhere.

[Gormo]

> In modern times, when people say VPN they're typically referring to a VPN with only a gateway and nothing else that all traffic gets routed through.

That's not really true -- this narrower usage only seems to apply in the consumer-oriented VPN-as-a-service space. Every other context maintains the conventional terminology. Routers have VPN options, WireGuard and OpenVPN are advertised as VPN applications, businesses set up corporate VPNs to access on-premises resources, etc. All of these are referring to the standard meaning of VPN.