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by krab 1777 days ago
> A UK person could easily get access to Netflix US by getting a friend in the US (or a US-based ebay seller) to set up their Netflix account

This can't be any random stranger if the UK person will be using the US person's means of payments. Therefore, not 100% but it could work in most cases.
2 comments
saurik 1777 days ago
Exactly... this simply isn't easy to pull off, and is certainly nowhere near as easy to pull off as changing your IP address, and is going to have way fewer false positives (in addition to fewer false negatives) than attempting to whack-a-mole VPNs over time with nothing more than limiting the number of Netflix accounts a person can pay for with a single credit card (such as to "1"). I'm literally mostly known for running a worldwide market with tens of millions of users--Cydia--and I'm telling you: it isn't some trivial restriction to bypass if you require someone's billing instrument to be located in a specific country (and the fact that such restrictions work so well is a big reason why blockchain has been so revolutionary to so many sectors... but isn't really going to affect Netflix's billing any time soon).
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rahimnathwani 1777 days ago
They'd have to also block BIN ranges often used for virtual cards (e.g. those used by Brex, Wise, privacy.com) and ranges commonly used for prepaid cards. Otherwise it's still easy to bypass.

One thing which supports your view: Spotify uses card billing address, and has large international pricing differences, but I don't hear much about people bypassing it by getting someone in the Philippines to pay for their account.

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nikau 1777 days ago
> They'd have to also block BIN ranges often used for virtual cards (e.g. those used by Brex, Wise, privacy.com) and ranges commonly used for prepaid cards. Otherwise it's still easy to bypass.

They sell netflix cards at supermarkets, so they would need to cease that also.

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kuschku 1777 days ago
Just have separate prepaid cards per country? You're already paying the price for that country's content selection, so Netflix should have no issue giving you access to that content either.
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Mindwipe 1777 days ago
That still allows easy bypassing of the country restrictions. If you're a local pay TV broadcaster who has paid a premium price for a show that is particularily attractive in a given country, you are not going to permit Netflix to sell the country you paid exclusive rights for.

Netflix could trivially buy the rights cheaply for a small country with a tiny economy and then use these cards to sell to the US or other major countries where the rights could cost a thousand percent more.

No competent distributor will let them do this.

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rahimnathwani 1777 days ago
Yes, it can be any random stranger. Just because you have access to a Netflix account, that doesn't mean you get to see/use the payment card details for something else.

If you don't believe me, ask a Chinese friend to show you how easy it is to buy a Netflix account on Taobao.

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