Netflix has started cracking down on VPN users, and CEO Reed Hastings couldn't care less about their gripes.
"It's a very small but quite vocal minority," Hastings said today of users outside the US who try to access Netflix via a so-called virtual private network that masks their real location. "It's really inconsequential to us."
The issue? Netflix may be (almost) everywhere, but all of its content isn't. Some subscribers abroad find this reality infuriating, so they use a VPN or proxy to access the US version of the site, which has more shows and movies they want to see. Some Netflix subscribers who use VPNs say they'll boycott the service (or turn to piracy) if their VPN access is blocked. But Hastings doesn't appear to be worried.
What really keeps Hastings up at night, it seems, is just getting more and more (and more) people using Netflix.
"We are but a little boat in a vast sea," the company's executives wrote in a letter to shareholders. "We earn a tiny fraction of consumers' time and money, and have lots of opportunity ahead to win more of your evenings away from all those other activities if we keep improving."
