If you’re someone who uses “Hola” or other proxy services, you’ve probably noticed that Netflix has started to crack down on these. What Netflix has come under fire for recently is reminding us all that at some level someone has to pay for the things we’re all streaming.
While Netflix is a paid streaming service, it has still provided people with a way to cheat the system and watch things for free online. Due to a combination of laws and agreements, which are perhaps a little too mundane to really get into, certain media is only available on Netflix in specific countries. What this means is that the site’s actual catalog is substantially larger than what any one country’s users have access to.
To get around Netflix’s content filters that are based on where you’re accessing it from, people use something called a proxy — a sort of web gateway. The short of it is that this service routes your connection through a server that essentially makes it so you’re accessing a website from a different location. People often use these for privacy and security reasons — making information more difficult to trace, etc. — but they can be also be used to circumvent geographically discriminating web traffic. With this, users can access all the content available from Netflix in other countries.
Some users have expressed that they’re disappointed in Netflix’s decision to crack down on the use of proxies, but they’re not really fair criticisms. While this is tremendously convenient for those who want to watch a movie or TV show without paying for it or hunting through the Internet, it does present a certain issue for the site. Netflix’s ability to stream content depends on its ability to convince companies producing said content that it’s a profitable decision.
For example: Let’s say that Disney owns "The Avengers" which is still selling DVDs in America but isn’t so popular in the U.K. Netflix pays X amount of dollars to stream "Avengers" in the U.K., making their site catalog larger without eating into Disney’s DVD sales. I then use a proxy to view the movie in America, however, so now I won’t rent the DVD or pay to watch it on iTunes and Disney has lost that money. Netflix might not have made it available to me, but they also didn’t do much to stop me either. While I might not feel that Disney really needs that $5, enough people doing the same thing makes that movie unprofitable to offer up for streaming and it eventually disappears from Netflix altogether.
Ultimately, if companies don’t feel as though it’s in their best interest to give Netflix access to their content, the site will have less to offer its customers. We tend to forget these days, with the boundless capabilities of the Internet, that media isn’t free. Sure, I can probably find anything for free online somewhere, but that’s not a good enough reason for companies like Disney and Universal to hand over distribution rights of their films to Netflix. Ironically, the level of availability that Netflix has provided us with has also caused this odd feeling of indignation in response to something not being both free and available whenever we want it.
While it might be inconvenient for Netflix to block proxies, it’s what allows us to keep enjoying it at all. Let’s face it, the policy really just forces us to comply with the terms of service. To be mad at a company for upholding its own legal agreements with its partners is a little juvenile. I might not be able to watch my favorite shows that are available in countries like the U.K., but for just $9.99 a month maybe I’m not entitled to have every single minute of content on Earth at the click of a button.
