VPN is considered by many an absolutely necessary privacy measure, as well as a convenient tool for changing your location. Using these features can be advantageous for several reasons in places like Netflix. VPN in general is absolutely necessary in the modern world, so subscribing to one won’t be amiss.
VPN remains the best tool of how to change Netflix region, and that, not the privacy matter, is actually the most curious and advantageous feature of this whole approach. Anonymity and data encryption is also incredibly powerful, but they are necessary on the whole, not just on Netflix.
So, let’s see how VPN can help you have a better experience on Netflix.
Table of Contents
Protection from Data Sale
Although Netflix isn’t as avid about gathering and selling your data as Facebook and similar platforms, they still do it. It’s nasty and will lead to uncomfortable spam letters (or even calls). Information on what you like to watch, where you live, and what banks you use can be sold and utilized by many marketing companies, actually.
VPN helps by supplanting some of this data on its own. They won’t know where you live or what hardware or software you use, although banking data (just superficial), preferences, and other details will still be gathered and given away. You’ll at least create some obstacles for them.
Lifting Regional Limitations
It’s no surprise that Netflix often imposes regional limitations on users from various countries. In a bizarre decision, for instance, British users can’t watch some British shows, while American users can’t watch some American shows. And it all depends on your current location, which can be changed with a VPN.
So, if you want to watch a show that is on Netflix, just not in your country, you can see where the show is available and change your location to that country – just don’t do that too often, because it can cause suspicion. Netflix isn’t known to be a malicious company, but they also don’t want you to bypass limitations they put in place themselves.
See What Other Countries Watch
This is a similar reason, but the motivation is completely different. If you want to watch a show that is regionally unavailable to you, you should absolutely use a VPN for it. It’s much cheaper to use VPN than to subscribe to another streaming service – and you won’t even have an option if that’s a Netflix exclusive.
But VPN also lets you see local shows that Netflix deems niche or uninteresting to the larger audience. It’s especially convenient if you actually used to live in a different country and want to access shows that are aired there. Unless you have a VPN connection, you won’t be able to switch locations.
That being said, if you worry about having to abandon these shows after moving to another country, you can stop. You should simply renew your subscription plan when it’s due and you’ll be able to enjoy the same very shows even without a VPN (although it is very convenient).
Pricing Change
Pricing on various products of the same provider can be different in various countries. Netflix is no different. Although most countries have the same $9-19 price for a monthly subscription, there are nations where a Netflix subscription is much less expensive.
For instance, it costs an equivalent of $5 to subscribe to a Basic Netflix plan in South Africa and $2 (even less for a mobile-only variant) in India. How you procure local currencies is up to you. There are services that let you do that, and you can always strike a bargain with a person in the said country to use their money in exchange for crypto or something of this sort.
The currency choice is fully dependent on your current location, and you can’t change it. It can only be changed if you moved to another country and restarted your account. So, VPN is one of the few ways to save money on Netflix.
Ban Circumvention
Another big reason to get a VPN service is its potential to provide free access to media. Netflix is currently banned in Syria, Russia, North Korea, and China. It’s also restricted in Iran, UAE, and a score of other countries, while more can be included in the list in the future. If that happens, you can download a VPN service to circumvent the ban.
Unlike the regional limitations on some shows and movies, this ban often comes directly from the government. In some cases, Netflix withdraws the services of their own volition, but it’s uncommon. If your VPN service is reliable and effective, it will provide you solid access to Netflix, although payment is another issue completely.