Datacenter Proxies: Dead or Evolved? Use Cases in 2026

Datacenter proxies are not dead in 2026 but have specialized. While residential IPs remain superior for high-trust targets, datacenter proxies offer unmatched cost efficiency for high-volume data ingestion, costing far less per GB. The key to their survival lies in subnet hygiene, ASN diversity, and a 'Velocity vs. Trust' framework that segments traffic between datacenter and residential proxies.