It is great that John was finally accepted. I suspect it was a little annoying especially when they don't make it clear up front why you are rejected. I suppose it could also be a potential problem if you use a VPN to access the internet which puts your traffic through an unapproved country.

I can see the reason why they might takes this approach of focusing on the IP address. Over the two years I have been on Medium, I have found many people from countries that are not able to access the MPP trying to circumvent the system. Asking for people to share their Stripe account, or trying to make use of other ways to connect the dots while operating from a country that is not allowed on the MPP.