Should we really be happy for Netflix Latin America?
Being a loyal customer during my multiple trips to the US, I was THRILLED that finally Netflix is coming to Latin America. Until yesterday…
As soon as it became available, I signed up and went straight to my beloved Documentaries section. I am disappointed…
Look at what I found, there are only like 20 documentaries, mostly low quality :
Check out the equivalent US section taken at exactly the same time, it has hundreds of titles in multiple categories:
Netflix: will the Latin America service be equivalent to the US one? Please don’t disrespect us. Just because we live in a third world country, that does not mean that you should give us a third world service.
Also, don’t make the mistake of adding translated titles to spanish. We want the movies in their original language!
If their initial selection is any indication, it doesn’t look like Netflix has any intention of offering equivalent service in Latin America to that offered in the US. I can’t imagine why anyone would pay to receive the poor content they are offering here.
There is only one positive aspect to their launch in Costa Rica. You can now sign up for a Netflix account without having a US credit card or mailing address. Once you are a member, you can connect to Netflix through a VPN with a US server and access their full US catalog. I tried it last night and it works fine.
That is correct, I’ve been doing that for over a year. I use hidemyass.com.
Here is my worry, that Netflix will start segregating accounts so no matter where is your ip from, your selection will not change. That would be a very bad message to latam customers, pretty much treating us like inferiors.
Also, the iphone app is only available in the us app store 🙁
It’s all about content rights. Netflix has to negotiate all the content rights for these new regions and that sometimes take time. Hopefully, the available content for latin america will grow quick.
Meanwhile, as Jim says, thank God for VPN!
Agreed, maybe I was just over optimistic!