They want people paying more money to them. If Netflix paid $1M (This is just an example, I have no idea what actual costs are) to offer House MD to their US customers that's all fine and great, but the content owners want them to pay another $1M to offer the same show to Canada, then another $3M for India, etc, etc as opposed to them just handing it out for the same price for the whole world.

The other option would be asking for $20M to offer the content to the world which in turn would mean rising Netflix monthly fees. Either case it is the customer that suffers in the process.

Not that simple.

The rights owner for France is typically not the same as for Spain, or for Brazil, or for Japan. Even if they're all englightened and friendly, the rights holders too are bound by a tangled web of age-old contracts.

A streaming shop I'm familiar with has signed contracts with ten different rights holders for one single film.