It would be much easier to bypass by using the pirate bay though, in which case Netflix doesn't get any money at all.

I think this is why they're doing it this way, at least they get paid. For Netflix it doesn't really matter which region a subscriber uses as long as they pay.

I think they just act against VPN use because the content owners force them to. They love trying to enforce their old borders in a digital world that has none. Personally I think they should be happy that users are going out of their way to pay for the content given how many alternatives are available. They even pay more for the VPN itself.

Really, how many users will go like "Oh blast, my favourite show is not available in my region, guess I better wait until someone inks a deal and allows me to watch it"?

Why do the content owners restrict to particular country? It makes no sense to me. Do they lose money by doing this?

They restrict to a particular country because it makes vastly, vastly more money.

Shows are worth disproportionately more in some territories, local broadcasters are also very good customers they want to keep happy and only license in areas covered by their transmission windows, basic things like the structure of the school holidays and weather make a tremendous difference when it's profitable to launch a show etc etc.

If I have a friend in the US, it's easier for them to set me up a guest account than for me to figure out how to use the Pirate Bay. Plus there's almost no risk of legal problems from using a friends Netflix account.

For now, yes. But they are definitely on a campaign to reduce the family sharing between countries as well. Along with this VPN ban I think they are just forcing people to pirate.

Just refusing to take someone's money and expecting them to wait until you will is not realistic. Even people that have worries about torrents will have friends/colleagues/nephews that are happy to produce a USB stick upon request.

There is no such thing as a Netflix guest account.

Sorry, set them up as a separate user.

Netflix has profiles intended to keep track of different members of the households preferred shows. The most expensive plan only allows 4 screens to be used at one time and they might notice when the "family" members appear to be in different countries.

In theory a single someone can share with another single someone but multiple households would be hard pressed to do so as it would be easy to exceed the number of screens preventing others who pay for the service from watching.

If you aren't already paying the extra $5 for 4 screens and UHD you only get 2 HD screens which is even more unsuited for sharing.

agreed.. i would think it would be much more effective than geoblock.