You should look at options for charging per movie/show. Then hopefully the copyright owner wouldn't care where the paying customer is living. I realise that a large portion of the public wouldn't pay for it, but I suspect there's a substantial market for it: A lot of people are still going to cinemas these, which I personally fail to understand, but it makes me think that a lot of people will pay per movie from the comfort of their home if charged at a reasonable price.
I don't understand why you were downvoted. I actually think this is a valid point.
But: isn't that what Google Play and Apple's iTunes are doing already - pay per show / movie? How would Netflix differentiate itself by offering such a service?
But you have to first pay for there basic service, and then their catalog is very restricted. The attraction of Netflix + VPN are the very significant catalog, and the price. I'm ready to pay a bit more, but basic cable fee + rental fee is not reasonable. Also, I do not want to sponsorise the garbage on basic cable.
I suspect iTunes require an Apple device. As far as google Play (and Amazon) goes, I had assumed that they have a fairly restricted catalogue with only newer shows/movies, but will take a look.
If you want to be able to rent things, use Amazon Instant Video instead. Personally between a Prime subscription and the odd rental of new titles I don't feel like I'm missing much after cancelling my Netflix subscription, although I'll probably renew when they release a new season of one of their originals.
Unfortunately, this would destroy Netflix's subscription service. Why? Because the moment you start having titles that are "exclusive" to pay-per-view, your subscription users would riot, seeing this as just a way to raise fees (see: the uproar when Netflix tried to spin off the DVD business) on "exclusive" titles. It also goes against / dilutes the whole addictive nature of Netflix.
As an aside, the HN guidelines mention you should avoid complaining about being downvoted.
