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Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada

cantada.ca

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Re: Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada

#51

Post by mynegation »

enjo wrote: post #40
gojomo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly such a service could be even cheaper with official sponsorship and universal coverage. Perhaps Canadians can lobby their MPs to institute a national system providing every Canadian with a United States IP address. The Single-Payer-Proxy-System – or in French, Proxy Système à Payeur Unique (SPPS-PSPU). There's really no reason for the nation to stand for this sort of Canadophobic discrimination. Indeed, wher…

I'd have to imagine that'd violate some sort of treaty. That's a huge part of the issues. These sort of regional restrictions are all wrapped up in a mess of various treaties and international agreements that Canada could not easily extricate themselves from.

I am Canadian myself and suspect that gp is just sarcastic.

Re: Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada

#53

Post by CountSessine »

brackin wrote: post #13
cmer wrote: post #3

To be fair, Skype is available in Canada. Only Skype-in numbers aren't.

No Skypein numbers? How? I swear it's available in a lot of obscure countries? And Canada is far from that, you'd expect it to have this.

No one knows, and neither Skype nor Industry Canada nor the CRTC are saying anything.

Re: Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada

#54

Post by stretchwithme »

jarek wrote: post #42
stretchwithme wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it would be better to discover and address the reasons why these services are unavailable.

Yeah. The market is too small - let's get procreatin', Canadians.

Well, the market for rhode island is small too. but the barriers for treating it the same as connecticut are nil. Its those barriers that are the problem, even if its just the costs of being in a different country.

I'm not sure what those are or whether nafta was supposed to reduce them or what. Maybe its simply regulatory. Maybe everything has to be duplicated. Maybe Canadian companies like it the way it is.

Re: Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada

#57

Post by kore »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #17

A lot of these issues can be resolved for $5/month and less than that if you're willing to setup your own private server. http://www.unblock-us.com/ lets you access American Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, ESPN3, etc etc. I'm not affiliated with them, but been using the service the past couple of months and it works amazingly. In fact I'm using American Netflix on my Xbox 360 as we speak. $5/month is a heck of a lot cheaper…

For those that want a free service and don't mind ads, there's also http://hotspotshield.com and http://expatshield.com which will let you access US and UK services respectively.

The UK one doesn't support OSX, so I run them both from within a separate Windows VM if there's some restricted service I want to access. That way their VPN software doesn't get in the way of my other activities, and I only get ads injected within the VM.

Re: Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada

#58

Post by redthrowaway »

enjo wrote: post #40
gojomo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly such a service could be even cheaper with official sponsorship and universal coverage. Perhaps Canadians can lobby their MPs to institute a national system providing every Canadian with a United States IP address. The Single-Payer-Proxy-System – or in French, Proxy Système à Payeur Unique (SPPS-PSPU). There's really no reason for the nation to stand for this sort of Canadophobic discrimination. Indeed, wher…

I'd have to imagine that'd violate some sort of treaty. That's a huge part of the issues. These sort of regional restrictions are all wrapped up in a mess of various treaties and international agreements that Canada could not easily extricate themselves from.

The problem isn't treaties, but distribution rights. US firms don't distribute content in Canada, but have Canadian subsidiaries or partners which do so. This means agreements between service providers and rights owners signed in the states aren't generally valid in Canada.

Re: Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada

#59

Post by hardy263 »

prawn wrote: post #33
mansr wrote: post #15

Is Canada any worse off than Europe, Asia, Latin America, or Africa in this regard?

Probably not, but in this case I imagine it was scratching a personal itch and no other country in the world starts with "can" - I imagine that bit really rubs it in the face of Canadians. I'm sure other copycats will emerge as people think up amusing domain options.

No, it's probably not because our country starts with "can"

The real itch is that some of these services are available as long as I drive an hour south and get past the border and find open wi-fi.

Pretend you're an avid soccer fan. It's as if the world cup was on TV, and your friends are all crowding around it. All you get is the commentary and cheering when the ball is scored, but you can't actually see the game, since they're blocking the TV. And then when your friends ask you "Wasn't that a great game?", and all you can say is "Uhh...I think so?"

It's so close, yet so far.

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