Netflix: No more US offer for Swiss customers
Netflix has started to block VPN services. This means that Swiss users can no longer access the US service.
By using VPN services, services such as Netflix are made to believe that the user is in America. This makes it possible for non-American customers to access the streaming service, which is actually reserved for US customers. This is an understandable need: the U.S. offering is much larger, and series that are hotly anticipated by fans are launched much earlier in America than in the rest of the world. While the USA offers 4500 films and 1100 series, Switzerland has just 1800 films and 450 series. And with this, Switzerland even comes off well in an international comparison, since it can access the offerings of all neighboring countries. This is shown by the comparison service Unogs.com. However, Swiss Netflix users also pay 35 percent more for the basic service than users in Germany.
According to Schweiz am Sonntag, Netflix has long announced that it would take action against VPN services - but so far the streaming service has shown little effort in practical implementation. This is now said to have changed: The VPN services Zenmate, Betternet and Mediahint have been blocked, even though access via the latter is still supposed to work.
The fact that countries are treated differently is not really what Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has in mind. He recently announced his goal of offering the same service all over the world. The film studios, on the other hand, are of a different opinion, still awarding licenses according to countries and language regions and presumably exerting pressure on Netflix.
The fact that customers who are willing to pay are prevented from obtaining digital content legally seems somewhat outdated in this day and age. For example, the fourth season of "House of Cards" will be available on Netflix USA on March 4. Swiss Netflix users will be left out in the cold: For the time being, the series will be reserved for Teleclub subscribers in this country. They can receive Sky Atlantic exclusively - the channel shows a new episode of the fourth season every Friday. From March 5, 2016, all 13 episodes will also be available on demand in the original English version on Teleclub on Demand on Swisscom TV.
Whether the Netflix-using Swiss fans of the series will switch to Swisscom and Teleclub must at least be questioned. Reed Hastings probably does, too. At the Swiss market launch, he commented to the BZ Bernese Newspaper Our biggest competitor in Switzerland is product piracy. Downloading pirated copies on the Internet is half legal in this country." (hae)
