[Dystopian]

As a Canadian, I find the whole saga of how our government works with the technology sector bat-shit crazy.

All of the media's coverage up here is disingenuously about tech overreach and not about how their lobbyists tried to double-dip on revenue (both demanding an estimated $329M/year[1] from tech companies, while also receiving the ad revenue from ++1.9B pageviews[2]).

The problem is there'll probably be some kind of settlement between the government, news companies, and tech. But while this drags on, the larger oligopoly of news outlets will come out alive, while smaller news outlets are really going to suffer financially.

If you want to read more about our government's recent brain-dead policies on technology you can look up:

C-11: A streaming services bill that mandates Canadian content on foreign streamers. Not horrible, but also a great way to have "This service is not available in your region." notices in your country.

DST: A "just because" global digital services tax of 3%, which will definitely be passed onto consumers, if not lead to service blockages in Canada.

C-18: ↑ This bill. Pretty much a shakedown by the government and media companies.

> This is coming from a registered liberal party member, who's socially liberal and is consistently confronted with the thought that I may actually be conservative.

[1] https://www.pbo-dpb.ca/en/publications/RP-2223-017-M--cost-e... [2] https://about.fb.com/news/2022/05/how-meta-supports-news-pro...

[soperj]

If there actually was a small-c conservative party in Canada I think a lot of people would be conservative. Too much religious dogma.

[gottorf]

A first-past-the-post system ends up in a two-party system, which means a big tent progressive party and a big tent conservative party; which in turn means nobody is fully happy with either option.

This isn't to say that multiparty democracies always function well, either. Belgium basically had no government (as in a party elected with a mandate to govern) for two years, from 2018 to 2020.

[soco]

I'm quite happy with the European content that Netflix is mandated to offer in our region. Some of what turned to be my favorite shows were Icelandic, British, Belgian or French and I'm quite sure we wouldn't have had them otherwise.

[wredue]

It’s perfectly normal to not agree with everything the people you voted for does.

Unless you find yourself in a position of always being a victim, and are perpetually contrarian just for the sake of it, you’re not likely a conservative.

We don’t have a “conservative” party that targets slow, but calculated progress.