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My solution to this was to pay a friend in the states to share his residential connection. I'd like to see them try and block Comcast's residential blocks. The

by lol768 10y ago

My solution to this was to pay a friend in the states to share his residential connection. I'd like to see them try and block Comcast's residential blocks. There's potential here for a middleman to write software/develop hardware that can share residential connections whilst filtering destination IPs (e.g. allowing AWS addresses) to try and minimize the potential for abuse with the goal of discouraging traffic other than that required for Netflix. The user using the service would pay a fee which the middleman would take a cut from, with the rest going towards the home owner's broadband costs. Payment is still problematic, ideally I'd be using a US bank account and credit card. But if they start clamping down on use of 'foreign' credit cards they will alienate those taking vacations etc.

ChuckMcM 10y ago
This won't work longer term if you also watch shows from your home region. A former Netflix engineer and I were talking about enforcing this sort of thing and people who "hop regions" always watch shows from different regions at different times. That flags your account, and your "home region" is known from your billing address and the "other" regions will get locked out. From what I understood they were still working on the "driller" problem where people who live in Canada but work in the US as oil drillers/exploration folks during the week in the northern part of the state, and go home for weekends. But the thing you can't change are watching shows from two different regions on the same account.
- revelation 10y ago
  Huh? If you have US billing, you can only watch the US catalog, and you need a US IP, right? But that's fine with the OP, that's why he is using his friends broadband anyway. The US catalog is what you want.
  - giancarlostoro 10y ago
    I imagine he would want to use his friends account too.
  - ChuckMcM 10y ago
    It probably is fine, unless he wants to watch something that is only available in his local, non-US, region. As far as Netflix is concerned, if you pay in the US and you stream from a US IP address, you're from the US region. But the question for the OP is, is that enough? As far as I can tell Netflix doesn't care at all about people who only stream from one region but they do care about people who stream from multiple regions.
    - lol768 10y ago
      > unless he wants to watch something that is only available in his local, non-US, region Not sure there's anything good that's UK-only. It's usually the other way around with all the good shows being available in the US.
  - Freak_NL 10y ago
    > Huh? If you have US billing, you can only watch the US catalog, and you need a US IP, right? From what I understand you get to watch the content of the region you are in at the moment. So on holiday you lose access to your home catalogue, but actually gain access to the catalogue of the country you are in at that moment. This seems to be part of how these region limited contracts with the content owners work. The two alternatives are not being able to use Netflix at all when you are abroad, or having access only to the catalogue of the country you are paying the bills from, regardless of where you physically are. Netflix appears to be heavily focusing on their own content to prevent this whole problem, but that does mean that the option of being able to pick whatever you want (legally) from a large back-catalogue is now blocked.
    - twoodfin 10y ago
      That matches my experience, at least in recent trips to the UK, Belgium & Germany. Netflix did think I was using a VPN and blocked me from one rural German hotel, though.
  - dagw 10y ago
    I have Swedish Netflix and when I travel I get the catalog of whatever country I happen to be in.
  - Broken_Hippo 10y ago
    The IP is the important bit. Source: I had a bit of netflix subscription when I moved to Norway. Paid with US billing. Not everything was available when I switched countries.
- rbanffy 10y ago
  > But the thing you can't change are watching shows from two different regions on the same account. Happens all the time when I travel and wife and daughter stay home.
izacus 10y ago
Note that content providers (Sony and others) consider that copyright infrigement on the same level as torreting the movie. And when torrenting the movie you don't have to jump through all those hoops, it'll always be available and never block or just stop in the middle of playback.
cheiVia0 10y ago
Connection sharing economy - the next billion dollar idea to disrupt the streaming service business!

by lol768 10y ago

ChuckMcM 10y ago

This won't work longer term if you also watch shows from your home region. A former Netflix engineer and I were talking about enforcing this sort of thing and people who "hop regions" always watch shows from different regions at different times. That flags your account, and your "home region" is known from your billing address and the "other" regions will get locked out. From what I understood they were still working on the "driller" problem where people who live in Canada but work in the US as oil drillers/exploration folks during the week in the northern part of the state, and go home for weekends. But the thing you can't change are watching shows from two different regions on the same account.

revelation 10y ago
Huh? If you have US billing, you can only watch the US catalog, and you need a US IP, right? But that's fine with the OP, that's why he is using his friends broadband anyway. The US catalog is what you want.
- giancarlostoro 10y ago
  I imagine he would want to use his friends account too.
- ChuckMcM 10y ago
  It probably is fine, unless he wants to watch something that is only available in his local, non-US, region. As far as Netflix is concerned, if you pay in the US and you stream from a US IP address, you're from the US region. But the question for the OP is, is that enough? As far as I can tell Netflix doesn't care at all about people who only stream from one region but they do care about people who stream from multiple regions.
  - lol768 10y ago
    > unless he wants to watch something that is only available in his local, non-US, region Not sure there's anything good that's UK-only. It's usually the other way around with all the good shows being available in the US.
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  > Huh? If you have US billing, you can only watch the US catalog, and you need a US IP, right? From what I understand you get to watch the content of the region you are in at the moment. So on holiday you lose access to your home catalogue, but actually gain access to the catalogue of the country you are in at that moment. This seems to be part of how these region limited contracts with the content owners work. The two alternatives are not being able to use Netflix at all when you are abroad, or having access only to the catalogue of the country you are paying the bills from, regardless of where you physically are. Netflix appears to be heavily focusing on their own content to prevent this whole problem, but that does mean that the option of being able to pick whatever you want (legally) from a large back-catalogue is now blocked.
  - twoodfin 10y ago
    That matches my experience, at least in recent trips to the UK, Belgium & Germany. Netflix did think I was using a VPN and blocked me from one rural German hotel, though.
- dagw 10y ago
  I have Swedish Netflix and when I travel I get the catalog of whatever country I happen to be in.
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  The IP is the important bit. Source: I had a bit of netflix subscription when I moved to Norway. Paid with US billing. Not everything was available when I switched countries.
rbanffy 10y ago
> But the thing you can't change are watching shows from two different regions on the same account. Happens all the time when I travel and wife and daughter stay home.

izacus 10y ago

Note that content providers (Sony and others) consider that copyright infrigement on the same level as torreting the movie. And when torrenting the movie you don't have to jump through all those hoops, it'll always be available and never block or just stop in the middle of playback.

cheiVia0 10y ago

Connection sharing economy - the next billion dollar idea to disrupt the streaming service business!