[lenepp]

Imagine if you were blocked from reading an ebook because you crossed a border. Regional/national licensing of content is a rent-seeking anachronism. It's really sad to see Netflix cave on this.

Incidentally, this is more or less contrary to what's happened with VAT in the EU, where if you buy digital content online, your are charged VAT for your home country if that's where your credit card is from and you choose it as your residing country in a purchase form - even if you are in another country when you make the purchase.

In Europe, as I understand it, Netflix is going to be forced to make sure your home country content goes with you, even when you leave the country (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35051054). I'm not sure if this means you will also be excluded from seeing content available in the country you've travelled to, if it's not available in your home country, but essentially it means you're sort of carrying around your nationality when you are accessing content online, just like you can now carry around your country's sales tax. It's the worst of all worlds. Imagine if e.g. companies allowed the Chinese government's restrictions to content to be imposed on its citizens outside china too. Yes, the EU looks like it's trying to get rid of some of the weird barriers to portability of content, but there's a chance this could go in the wrong direction.

In any case, the whole system is artificial, profoundly inefficient and unethical in a number of ways.