You can easily test this yourself. Just install the Tor Browser and visit any website with captchas. Most Tor exit node servers are semi-blacklisted, which means that a Tor user will receive multiple captcha challenges in series, even if they have been answered correctly.

If you are especially unlucky, you might even get denied entirely after solving captchas for several minutes.

Can confirm. Had the same experience using a VPN. I “didn’t have anything to hide”, just wanted privacy benefits of using a VPN while browsing the web, but the CAPTCHAs made it totally impractical so I gave up on it. I guess Google got what they wanted.

I've had Captcha insist that I have to misidentify a mailbox as a parking meter before it would let me proceed.

I experienced it few times too. With the slower and slower fading pictures. And the button submit that stays active but doesn't work.

I’ve experienced the same thing. I can think of a semi-charitable possible explanation but after this much time I must conclude it’s on purpose.