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posted by janrinok on Saturday April 11 2020, @02:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the follow-the-money dept.

Since early 2020 Netflix has cracked down on VPN users by disconnecting sessions at random and terminating SSL connections to their main website. This action is to due to content distributors pressuring Netflix to prevent users from accessing content outside of their geographical zone as they believe this is costing them in terms of profit. The end result is that users who always use a VPN to access the internet are cut from Netflix as collateral damage even if their account is registered in the same country where they connect to a VPN for. While some VPN providers have given up, NordVPN and a few others are battling on to provide their users with peace of mind while accessing services on the internet.

Can I get my money back because Netflix is not delivering the service I paid for?


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @02:53PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @02:53PM (#981142)
    The gaming industry finally realised that region locking is ridiculous, a wasted effort, and is completely counterintuitive since all it generates is lost sales. To hell with the content controllers trying to price-gouge regions; it's basically a scam and they can go fuck themselves. The same realisation needs to fall upon services like Netflix and all the players behind them. You've got a group of people that are willing and continuing to pay for the service and they are hellbent on denying them that service. Did they forget that Bittorrent has no borders nor costs? What sympathy should the honest customer have remaining if they are trying to pay for something and are spat upon when they try? I would suggest they not only use BT to get what they are trying to get but sever their ties with Netflix too. Like others are saying, why pay for a service that is not being rendered?

    If enough users would take that route maybe they would rethink their strategy of collecting money for a service and not rendering it. Some entities show more wisdom here. For example, the NHL from North America will service customers in Europe more than happily, delivering live streaming in HD for every event!
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @03:07PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @03:07PM (#981144)

    Not true. To this day, Steam discriminates against users based on country of connection (and will ban users who use VPNs). They charge some customers (Americans, Australians, Western Europeans) four times as much as other customers. They hide this under the guise of currency conversion, but if you run the numbers, you will see the truth. There used to be an economy around buying games in a cheap country, and then sending them as gifts to a paying customer, but Steam has now blocked that too.

    If you connect to Steam from a VPN in another country, and then buy a game at a lower price than Steam thinks your home country deserves, they will ban your account, and forcibly uninstall all your games.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @03:31PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @03:31PM (#981157)

      More reasons to avoid Steam?
      I never used it.. but.. no longer use HumbleBundle because they have jumped the shark. They pretty much just sell Steam keys now..

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2020, @05:04PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2020, @05:04PM (#981583)

      Except that they lower the price for markets with low income. Some money is better than no money. Yes, it might hurt your feelings a bit, but you can use those dollar bills you get payed with to wipe 'em off. Unlike us here with local currency that falls dozens % per year as soon as someone sneeze nearby.

      • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday April 14 2020, @12:48PM

        by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 14 2020, @12:48PM (#982552) Homepage Journal

        The original reason for DVD regions was that American movies tended to be shown in America about a year before they were shown in Europe.

        In the interim, they had time to do things like dubbing and subtitling. At least that was part of the official story.

        In fact, they were also using that year to do market analysis in America so that they could adjust their advertising to the perceived cultural differences between America and the rest of the world.

        When I was last in Holland about 20 years ago, no one there would buy a DVD player that hadn't been "chipped"; i.e., had the region restrictions removed.

        -- hendrik