Wouldn't it make sense for the BBC to sell their service to people outside of the UK? Aren't they allowed to? Or do they already?
And yet we've done it multiple times in the US. We routinely encounter situations in the media industry where a new medium is hated/feared by the entrenched players who try to use refusal to license content as a way to kill the new medium before it takes off. Up until very recently, the standard solution to this, in order to not have artifically-granted monopolies on content stifle technological innovation, was for Congress to impose mandatory licensing schemes on the copyright holders.
That's how cable TV originally got off the ground, for example; over-the-air broadcast networks didn't want to license their content to cable, but Congress imposed mandatory licensing on them. Result: brand-new multi-billion-dollar industry that kept those networks alive a while longer.
It almost sounds as if people want companies to be forced to make their content available at a desirable price to anyone in the planet, no matter the cost of it.
In other words, people are talking as if they have the "right" to see that content.
One of these two things makes money.
We're halfway through the 2010s, if a random web developer can paywall content and take money for access in hours, then the BBC can manage. I want to give them money. They won't let me.
Their loss. My conscience is clear when I watch Countdown through a UK proxy.
All the anti-piracy methods practiced by major content providers is inherently irrational.