A lot is happening in the world of Netflix these days. The popular online streaming service just this month rolled out services in more than 100 countries, including India, dubbed #NetflixEverywhere. Now, Netflix is available in 190 countries globally. This makes them the first true global video streaming service, in the battle against the likes of Hulu, HBO’s Now and even the upcoming Spotify Shows. In India, the monthly subscription starts at ₹ 500, and seems like a good option for movie buffs and for weekend TV binge sessions. While everything seems fine on the surface, a closer look reveals the real picture.

Even before the excitement of the global rollout died down, Netflix announced that it would be clamping down on millions of subscribers who bypass regional restrictions using proxy services, virtual private networks (VPNs) and unblocking tools.

There are multiple ways in which users can use these bypass methods. Some require signing in to a website to enable the virtual location change, while some require adding a different domain name system (DNS) to your Wi-Fi router or PC.

Through such methods, for example, a user in India can access the library of content that is otherwise available to users in the US or UK only.

“Some members use proxies or unblockers to access titles available outside their territory...In coming weeks, those using proxies and unblockers will only be able to access the service in the country where they currently are," said David Fullagar, vice president of Content Delivery Architecture at Netflix, when announcing the measures.

It is important to understand that people used unblocking tools till now to actually get access to Netflix at a time when it wasn’t officially available in their country. But, why would the same users want to continue using the same unblocking tools when they have a localized flavour of Netflix in their country? The reason is simple—to get access to more content.

Why did Netflix not do this earlier? One doesn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out—they would have lost subscribers and that would have meant a significant loss of revenue.

This whole move aimed at blocking bypass tools, they can simply shift users to the local library of content and yet keep the cash registers ringing with absolutely no negative impact. Also, now that Netflix is present in multiple countries and has different agreements with channels and studios, the streaming service cannot let this practise continue.

The bigger question is that of content. Netflix has the rights to stream a massive library of movies and TV shows, which includes some of their own shows known as Netflix Originals. At the same time, not many users realize that the library of content they can access in India (as well other countries) varies significantly. At this time, Netflix can wave the licensing agreements and claim they cannot show all TV series and movies everywhere. For example, the House of Cards TV show is being broadcast on Zee Café and Zee Café HD channels, and the agreement allows sole rights for a certain amount of time. To top it off, Netflix has never been very clear about what library is available or not available in each of the other 189 countries, compared to what it offers in the US.

A web based catalogue known as UNOGS (www.unogs.com) has made a catalogue of each country where Netflix is available, along with the number of movies and TV shows on offer in each. For example, at the time of writing this, Netflix’s library in the US included 4567 movies and 1114 TV series. A direct comparison with India, and what you get is a library of 563 movies and 213 TV series. To understand the trend, we looked at some more countries—South Africa (494 movies and 215 TV shows), Turkey (517 movies and 203 TV shows) and Portugal (552 movies and 222 TV shows).

Incidentally, Netflix isn’t the first to try this. In 2014, Hulu tried something similar. The result was that VPN and bypass services simply tweaked their methods, conveyed that to their users, and Hulu pretty much failed at that.

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