Netflix CEO and co-founder Reed Hastings announced at CES 2016 that the company has launched its platform in several new locations, including South Korea and India.
In a blog post, Netflix VP of content delivery architecture David Fullagar said that company is making progress in licensing content all over the world, with Netflix now being offered in a total of 190 countries.
Fullagar said that Netflix anticipates one day being able to license its content throughout the world, but for now, the movies and TV shows offered through the platform will be different in varying degrees among locations as the company will be following the content licensing regulations of different countries.
The company still has a long way to go before it would be able to offer the same content in all locations. As such, Netflix users that are not able to access certain content on the platform due to unavailability in their country are resorting to using VPN proxies or unblockers. These tools try to trick Netflix's systems into believing that the users are from a country where the content they want to access is available.
To address the usage of VPN proxies, Netflix is using measures similar to what other companies have in place, with the technology evolving as the company grows. This means that, over the coming weeks, Netflix users that have been able to use VPN proxies will no longer be able to watch content that should not be accessible within their countries.
Fullagar noted that Netflix users that are not using VPN proxies will not be affected in any way by the upcoming changes.
"We look forward to offering all of our content everywhere and to consumers being able to enjoy all of Netflix without using a proxy. That's the goal we will keep pushing towards," Fullagar ended the blog post, reiterating the company's vision of making all its content accessible globally.
This is a bold move for Netflix, as an executive of the company even previously denied that the company is cracking down on the usage of VPN proxies by its users. It seemed that the company was simply turning a blind eye to the cases, much in the same way that Hastings himself said that the sharing of Netflix accounts among several users is a positive thing for the platform, believing that the sharing users will eventually be purchasing their own subscriptions to the service.
By blocking the usage of VPN proxies, Netflix is looking to protect the investments that is making in both infrastructure and content. However, at the same time, the company is sending signals to content creators all over the world that while it will be following the geographical regulations for content licensing, it is looking towards a future where the platform will be truly global.
Netflix could also be placing pressure on the content distributors to provide global rights to Netflix, as opposed to different buyers in different markets, as the opportunity to reach a worldwide audience might be too good to pass up.
In the short term, however, with limited third-party offerings for countries that have newly received access to Netflix, the original content of the streaming service would be given the spotlight and would build Netflix not just as a content distributor but also as a content creator.
