I understand that geo-blocking is normal (although I loathe it) but if you're a company that wants to "protect publishing deals in my country" part of that is telling me how to buy your content in my country. After all, if I'm paying for a VPN and paying for your service I've shown some commitment - financial and technical - to being your customer.
They deal with such large numbers that you in particular are less than a rounding error. While they could provide streaming to you as a group that opens a whole case of worm cans regarding potential taxes, law suits, contract disputes, etc.
While we often think of how simple it is to do because we approach it from the tech side and we sometimes think of it from the business side we (self included) rarely think of it from the HUGE CORPORATE side, which is, they have better things to do.
Sadly, things are setup in a way that is not beneficial to us, the consumer.
They sent out an email. Why didn't they include an url? That url would list countries and the providers in that country who provide HBO content; or it would list shows and then who provides those shows in what countries.
HBO still gets to block people outside the US, but also pushes those people to HBO content via official channels.