

Does It Matter If The Future Isn't Available In Canada? - jl1
http://www.techvibes.com/blog/does-it-matter-if-the-future-isnt-available-in-canada

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Maciek416
Some services/companies are very good at working internationally from the
outset, some really aren't. As a Canadian, I get bit by this constantly.
Amazon, Newegg, Grand Central (now Google Voice), pretty much all the big
media video networks.. etc.

The funny thing is that American companies that engage in this kind of anti-
cross-border behaviour may never realize just how much hostility they're
brewing up against their products before they even finally arrive in Canada.
By then there may be home-brewed alternatives. In the case of media, I think
this will be particularly interesting because TV viewership amongst my
demographic seems to collapsing in certain circles, yet people still want to
jump online and view/share their clips. These are often blocked (or redirected
to Canadian sites which have less content or use undesirable plugins/tech to
show video).

So what's your alternative? Well, nothing! You go do something else. If the
Big Media companies drag their asses on this issue I wouldn't be surprised if
it had severe long term repercussions, causing people to switch to other forms
of entertainment, brands, etc. One media market that never caved to idiotic
lawyering (w.r.t US vs. Canada issues anyway) is video games. Perhaps we'll
see that win out over time.

I find it hard to believe that a reasonably wealthy country with a population
just under the size of California is ignored and blocked so systematically.
It's actually the effort given to blocking our IPs that's the most surprising.
I mean, don't Hulu's ad clients want me to buy their products up here too? ..
Call it naive if you wish, I'll call it leaving money on the table.

~~~
serhei
> One media market that never caved to idiotic lawyering (w.r.t US vs. Canada
> issues anyway) is video games.

Maybe because a reasonable chunk of the game industry is _in_ Canada, and an
even more reasonable chunk is outside North America all together (so that
releasing in Canada as well as US isn't that big of a hassle as the hassle of
going international from domestic).

Compare to entertainment (Hulu), where Canadians tend to import a vast (and to
some disturbing) majority of the "culture" from the United States.
Entertainment is much, much more centralized, and it's centralized in the US.
Which is why Canada has Canadian content regulations (does Hulu have to abide
by those? and if so, how do you define 'airtime' when it's on-demand? and a
million other questions I have no idea about), and indirectly why nothing is
ever available in Quebec (overall the asinine Quebecois laws are there because
that's the price Quebec is willing to pay to maintain its own cultural and
political identity).

For small countries, there is therefore a certain plus side to partially
giving up sovereignity to join an effective economic superstate like the EU.
Cross-border penetration of cool gadgets is just one part of this. Sadly, the
only economic superstate bordering Canada is the United States which Canadians
are, let's say.. ambivalent about joining.

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anamax
> Canadians tend to import a vast (and to some disturbing) majority of the
> "culture" from the United States.

And the US imports a lot of Canadians to produce said "culture", so saying
that US culture is different is somewhat strange. (No, Jennings, Shatner, and
Pamela Anderson aren't the only ones.)

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lux
What gets me aren't devices that may have phyisical limitations or regulations
to overcome (e.g., Kindle net access is bound to a US provider, hence not
available here), but the purely online services that there's no reason we
can't access other than a paranoid legal team and a US-only registration form.
Amazon's Mechanical Turk is one big example of that. Amazon FPS and Google
Checkout are a couple others. Are we really that small of a market that we're
not worth considering even after several years?

~~~
Tiktaalik
Probably the most glaringly bizarre and horrible example is the lack of
Mint.com in Canada. This is strange and aggravating for two main reasons.
Firstly because Mint.com has been around since 2006, which is a very, very
long time in internet years and they should have expanded beyond the USA by
now. Secondly, because many Canadian banks, for example TD Bank (TD = Toronto
Dominion), have large presences in the USA and you can use Mint.com with them.
The fact that you can use Mint.com in America with a Canadian bank but you
can't use Mint.com in Canada (which only has like 6 banks) is so bizarre and
arbitrary that it feels offensive.

~~~
patio11
Mint is just a user-friendly wrapper on Yodlee, which integrates directly with
the banks to get the data. The amount of data slurped is incredible --
basically, an RSS feed on your financial life.

Your government, in its infinite wisdom, has seen fit to protect you from
unscrupulous American companies which could possibly record your data without
complying with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents
Act. (Never heard of it? Your bank has.) This strengthened existing
legislation, such as the Bank Act (never heard of it? Your bank has.), one
section of which "requires banks to maintain and process in Canada any
information or data relating to the preparation and maintenance of bank
records, including customer account records".

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pmjordan
Living in a small European country, you run into similar problems. Being in
the EU helps with physical goods (except new mobile phones until the unlocked
versions make their way to the retail channels), but online services are
pretty happy to ignore the fact that you even exist.

It gets even worse with media: each country has its own cartel representing
entertainment copyright holders, meaning it's essentially impossible that
we'll ever get something like hulu.com in Austria unless something changes in
a big way. Presumably the legal hassles of working out contracts for each
country individually are ridiculous, and simply not worth it in less populous
countries. As with almost every aspect of the entertainment media industry,
_everyone_ loses: consumers, copyright holders and operator of the service.

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falldowngoboom
At least Canadians are starting to realize that "the future is here, just not
evenly distributed". (W.Gibson)

Related:

    
    
      http://availableincanada.com/

