If the return on investment doesn't exceed the cost of setting up the licensing and distribution rights, it won't happen.
That part seems logical. But I am amazed that "licensing and distribution" would be so expensive that it would exceed the value of millions of people viewing their content. That sounds like the companies are becoming inefficient. Their own internal paperwork is so complex and expensive that they can't deploy their own product. Ouch, that's really wacky.
Even then, it has to exceed costs by a high enough amount, otherwise the entities involved will focus their efforts on something else that's more lucrative
I get that. I work for a company that decided to can a perfectly functioning and completed product because the regulatory requirements for a particular region cost $10 million. Now, they know it would make more than $10 million, but they only had $10 million to spend in that fiscal year. So they spent it on a product that would make more. To all the people on that project, it seems like a really weird decision. But you only have so much working capital.
I echo your sentiment about the "global economy." By default, a licensing agreement should apply universally to all geographies. If I build something on the internet, it is available to everyone by default. I must go out of my way and spend extra money to make it not work for some people based on their location. In this case, the content providers stunted their own sales to the point of creating a black market. (The people using VPN to access Netflix are essentially a black market. Or gray market if you prefer since they aren't doing anything illegal.)