This hasn't been the case for a long time, although for some reason it remains a common misperception. I think it's mainly a marketing problem because people are always reading comments like this online, or hearing about such-and-such series that "is on Netflix" but disappointingly isn't currently available in the UK, while simultaneously being unaware of all the content that is available in the UK but not in the US.

For example, Netflix UK has the first 2 Hobbit movies, Pixar's Up, the original Danish versions of The Killing and The Bridge, all of Stargate SG-1/Atlantis, 24 and The Shield - none of which are currently available in the US. There's a load more I can't remember off the top of my head. The UK also got Breaking Bad a few hours after it was aired in the US, whereas US customers had to wait several months, presumably due to an exclusivity deal with AMC.

Obviously the UK also gets all the Netflix original content. Occasionally a new season will launch a few months ahead in the US, but that's not really a big deal. I can only assume this is done for same marketing reasons that blockbuster movie launches are typically staggered worldwide.

There are a small number of US shows like 30 Rock and Better Off Ted that I wish were on the UK service, and Star Trek DS9 is conspicuously absent, but that list is much smaller than it was 2 years ago.

This is sadly also true for the Nordic countries. There's a bunch of contenders in the streaming business and huge pushes for cable-TV from the major broadband providers. The sad part is that most services are utter crap and suffer from huge technical problems, consumer unfriendly subscription models, horribly implemented localisation and a serious lack of content. Netflix is reasonably good and their own series are more or less worth the 8€ subscription fee. Finnish Netflix compared to the US version costs 25% more for <25% of the content of the US version.

It isn't too difficult to access the US version of Netflix, but doing so reliably requires a VPN connection which I am not willing to pay for. And it's technically equally illegal as the piratebay and more of a hassle to get it to work with my chromecast/plex/xmbc.

This is sadly a really old problem. Noone is currently selling film/TV-series content to a reasonable price that could even look at competing with the piratebay/piratism. Heck, todays services can't compete with piratism from ten years ago.

Just do what everyone else does... watch Netflix US via a proxy.