Yes, proxies can be exceptionally stable and they're usually faster than the free ones. They are vastly superior to the free ones when they work. Looking at the failure modes, however:
The free ones resolve backwards to something with "proxy" in it or "proxyprovider" like
http://proxysitelist.net/. so they can be blocked en masse. They're also in a block of IP addresses, they're scattered throughout the world one at a time. If one gets blocked, the bot gets disconnected, notices it's disconnected and exits. The Director launches it with a new proxy or
Free proxy sites