I suspect it used to back when Netflix was more of an archive of "classics" and less supplier of their own content.
Also, it depends a bit on where in the world you lived. Netflix for the most part was a US phenomena, and even as it spread elsewhere the library offered often lagged what was found in the US. So people would use proxies and similar to access the US library from abroad.
Ah yeah good point about region. In this case we'd have to look at just US viewers of Netflix Originals. The entire dataset would be interesting though.
Also, it depends a bit on where in the world you lived. Netflix for the most part was a US phenomena, and even as it spread elsewhere the library offered often lagged what was found in the US. So people would use proxies and similar to access the US library from abroad.