If you are using a VPN how do they know you aren't on vacation in Australia and are trying to watch shows that Netflix doesn't have the rights to in Australia.

I understand that this is about your location while streaming not while signing the contract.

But the location only matters because of where you sign the contract. No one loses money from allowing this to happen, no rights are interfered with. If a resident of Australia vpn’s Into Germany to watch an Aussie programme then an Australian network loses a viewer for at least that content, but a German who’s paid for it in Germany?

I pay for UK Netflix still because where I live the local Netflix only gives me subtitles in the local language. If they lock me out of my VPN then I’ll cancel and just pirate stuff instead. This “edge case” is going to lose them money and retain the viability of the pirate network.

> If a resident of Australia vpn’s Into Germany to watch an Aussie programme then an Australian network loses a viewer for at least that content, but a German who’s paid for it in Germany?

At one point I understand a double digit percentage of Ebay's entire revenue was people selling US Hulu pre-paid cards to viewers outside the US.

Bypassing financial geofiltering is easier than bypassing IP based geofiltering generally. But, ultimately, generally speaking studios nowadays expect you to do both, not one or the other, so Netflix adopting models on payment territory would not mean they didn't have to block VPNs any more, it means they would have to do both like everyone else does.

Also, having spent some time trying to build this product myself and failed, you are vastly overestimating how reliable international payment identification is on country of origin. Like a lot.