I wonder how much money they are making selling their content to foreign networks vs. the amount they could make opening their online service up globally.
I am assuming that if they did open it up globally, they would not be able to sell the shows for as much money to other networks.
I understand your comment, and you are probably right. I like to watch movies/tv shows in their original language, so not many would be open to pay to watch english only shows... I don't know.
Here in Portugal, I'd say subtitles are still a must if you want to reach most of the market. The average HBO show viewer has certainly a better grasp of English than the average citizen, but probably not good enough to understand complex dialog.
That said, subtitling from English is fairly cheap, especially at the current level of quality, so there's no reason to avoid it.
I am assuming that if they did open it up globally, they would not be able to sell the shows for as much money to other networks.