They optionally sign contracts which contain geo-fencing clauses. There’s no law that says content must be geo fenced, and that suspicion of proxy use, for any purpose must result in denial of service.

There's no law, but then there's no content, which Netflix needs to serve their users. Netflix is a business, not an entity set up to fight Internet freedom.

So before Netflix introduced a VPN ban, Netflix didn’t exist? Same for Amazon, Apple, etc. etc.?

No. Rights holders groups asked for it, and they said yes to increase their margins.

Sure. And if they said "no" to rights holders, rights holders would pull the licenses.

Whether the move increases Netflix or not - doesn't matter really. As long as they license someone else's content, they have to play by someone else's rules. If this play also increases Netflix's margins, so be it - all I care about is having access to movies.

You have an awful lot of certainty about the positions of both parties in these contract negotiations. It seems more likely to me that Netflix would simply have to pay more. I’m sure Netflix could pay less in exchange for the IP and email addresses of people watching in real-time, too, but that doesn’t mean it’s either inevitable or desirable.

I imagine that Netflix as a distribution platform may wield more power than you imagine.

I guess we'll agree to disagree. I'm pretty sure we can safely say that neither of us was privy to the contract negotiations between Netflix and studios. :)