Not just a little heavy-handed. If that's what they did, they probably picked up users that just happened to use the service from one of the countries at some previous point in time. And, at that point, the sanctions may not even have been in place.
Now, I admit that visiting the countries on the list aren't on my to-do-list, but if for example I decided to make a vacation trip to Cuba I really shouldn't lose my account at any US-based service just because of that.
I did leave FB for awhile. But I realized that there are groups on Facebook that I do find interesting. I do get the occasional event invite on FB, sometimes personal, sometimes even work related. And, there are some people I enjoy communicating with, on Facebook.
But, I really don't have much interest in what most of my friends post. Luckily, it's easy to just "unfollow" them to declutter my feed. They are still on my friends list and we can still communicate via FB/Messenger if needed. I just don't have to scroll through pictures of their food or kids or pets.
I do like some of their own content. I also like their general business model and I believe (well, I hope) that the stupid geo-restrictions are results of old-school licensing and not active business decisions made by Netflix.
But ofc, I wouldn't mind if they had some real competition, I don't want a monopoly.
I used to use a VPN to watch US Netflix, but they started to block known VPNs and I didn't feel like spending time on workarounds. On the other hand, downloading the latest episode of some TV series takes only a few mouse clicks. For sure easier than fighting geo-restrictions.
I still pay for Netflix, but doesn't really watch it much because of the tiny catalog available to me locally, I simply want to support them. Perhaps it will make me feel better if I would download any of their content. :)
I'm surprised this wasn't upvoted higher. Having multiple servers without the ability to connect them in a secure network doesn't really make sense. Ofc you can DIY with VPNs but it is really a service that a cloud host should provide.
There's something fishy with the adblock detection at forbes.com. I have no adblocker at all in Chrome, but I can't get pass the landing page that tells me to disable the adblocker.
The two stories are similar in that both founders seem mostly interested in getting publicity for themselves. Neither project is a real attempt to create a new state.