Great idea!
Are you expecting the forum to be used for references to the next best alternatives that are available in Canada? That's what immediately comes to mind. But then I wonder if those topics would quickly scroll off the list.
Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada
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Re: Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada
#12Are copyright laws more strict in Canada? Or are royalties a lot higher? There seem to be primarily music/video content services on the list.
As far as I can tell, it's a combination of the licensing being different (as in the terms of your license probably only cover the United States to start), and the CRTC's content laws and other regulations being annoying enough not to bother with considering our relatively smaller market size.
(I think it's considerably easier to go from Canada to the US than in the opposite direction.)
Re: Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada
#13To 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.
Re: Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada
#14there are more: Google checkout is not available for sellers, zappos (they just closed their canadian store), unlimited internet etc.
Unlimited internet is, but for enterprises only.
Re: Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada
#15Is Canada any worse off than Europe, Asia, Latin America, or Africa in this regard?
Re: Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada
#16Re: Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada
#17A 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 than moving to the states and I get to keep the free health care.
Re: Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada
#18tarsnap is not available to canadians :(
(info: developer of tarsnap is canadian, he has his reasons)
Re: Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada
#19Is Canada any worse off than Europe, Asia, Latin America, or Africa in this regard?
I'm sure it's about the same. However, since we Canadians get such a huge amount of our media from the US it's likely more of a disappointment.
Re: Show HN: My weekend project, tracking the services you can't have in Canada
#20tarsnap is not available to canadians :( (info: developer of tarsnap is canadian, he has his reasons)
For the curious: http://www.tarsnap.com/legal-why.html#NOCANADIANS