Interestingly enough, these days it's often an advantage to have high ping, because modern games make client-side hit detection authorative. With Apex Legends, Respawn uses the argument that playing against laggers but with client-side hit detection makes the bullshit that happens "symmetrical" and they want to keep the game accessible for people with poor connections, but anyone that plays against laggers knows that is absolutely not the case.

I wish modern games would just include a Ping Lock toggle in the matchmaking. "Do not match me with anyone with poor connection quality" (>100 ping, >1% packet loss). With a big fat pop-up warning that it'll increase matchmaking times.

It was deeper than that. That was just the way we were all classified back then: hpb (high), lpb (low), slpb (super-low?). When we got a cable modem in `99, I felt like hot shit to leave the hpb shame behind.