This is an October 2024 paper written by Canadian [Michael Geist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Geist), who is the preeminent scholar on internet and social media regulation and taxation expert not just in Canada, but worldwide. Geist has written many more recent papers on this topic but I intentionally chose this 2024 paper to get away from the conversation on Trump. Geist has routinely made the point that the current Canadian tax and regulatory proposals for e-commerce and social media is discriminatory, inefficient and essentially a tariff on consumers. This is by far the consensus opinion in academia on the matter of things like the DST. Some quotes –
> While some argue this is Big Tech bullying, it is better viewed as a predictable response from companies whose existing contributions were greeted with false claims that they did not invest in Canada and whose suggested policy alternatives were simply ignored. It is no different than EV battery companies responding to government funding for competitors to seek similar support or entrepreneurs leaving Canada due to tax policy changes. Companies of all sizes seek to minimize tax obligations, and new financial obligations invariably spark budget changes.
>**The irrational actors here were government and the policy supporters who seemed to think there would be no consequences for costly legislation that sought to extract billions in payments for little, if anything, in return.**
> Needless to say, it has not played out that way.
>Earlier this year, the CRTC ruled that internet streaming services must pay 5 percent of their Canadian revenues to support a variety of Canadian broadcasting programming. That decision came before the commission completed work on foundational issues such as identifying what qualifies as Canadian content or determining how existing contributions from streaming services would be treated for the purposes of the regulation.
>The result: potential increased consumer costs, multiple legal challenges, and now the cancellation of tens of millions of dollars in sponsorships by Netflix. These cancellations will hit younger creators particularly hard since much of the sponsorship is focused on new creative development. For example, the Globe and Mail reports that Netflix funded roughly 90 percent of ImagineNATIVE’s year-round development programs.
>All of it is now at risk due to the uncertainty associated with whether the contribution will count for regulatory purposes. The lost sponsorship was entirely predictable as critics (myself included) warned that millions in new mandated payments would come primarily from shuffling existing spending and result in little new money.
> **Canadian businesses now face higher advertising costs, which will likely be passed along to consumers and lead to smaller ad budgets for print publishers at the very time that government policy is trying to increase advertising on those platforms**. Moreover, Canadian business sectors could face billions in retaliatory tariffs since the U.S. can target whatever sectors it wants.
>There is nothing wrong with regulating tech companies and ensuring that they pay their fair share. However, by demanding these companies bankroll government policy objectives through billions in new taxes and payments without fully fleshing out the regulatory frameworks or remaining open to alternative policy approaches, there was always a risk that they would respond by hiking consumer prices or cancelling support to meet the new budget demands by redirecting funding elsewhere.
>**The surprise isn’t that this is precisely what is happening but rather that the government ignored the repeated warning signs that this was the likely outcome.**
Alone-Prize-354 on
My personal experience is that the people who are the biggest social media haters are the ones who are terminally online commenting a million times a day. I’m not saying it’s like not a bad thing for society, especially shit like TikTok and Snapchat, but there’s more tolerance and understanding for alcohol addiction and drug addiction these days than for social media.
2 Comments
This is an October 2024 paper written by Canadian [Michael Geist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Geist), who is the preeminent scholar on internet and social media regulation and taxation expert not just in Canada, but worldwide. Geist has written many more recent papers on this topic but I intentionally chose this 2024 paper to get away from the conversation on Trump. Geist has routinely made the point that the current Canadian tax and regulatory proposals for e-commerce and social media is discriminatory, inefficient and essentially a tariff on consumers. This is by far the consensus opinion in academia on the matter of things like the DST. Some quotes –
> While some argue this is Big Tech bullying, it is better viewed as a predictable response from companies whose existing contributions were greeted with false claims that they did not invest in Canada and whose suggested policy alternatives were simply ignored. It is no different than EV battery companies responding to government funding for competitors to seek similar support or entrepreneurs leaving Canada due to tax policy changes. Companies of all sizes seek to minimize tax obligations, and new financial obligations invariably spark budget changes.
>**The irrational actors here were government and the policy supporters who seemed to think there would be no consequences for costly legislation that sought to extract billions in payments for little, if anything, in return.**
> Needless to say, it has not played out that way.
>Earlier this year, the CRTC ruled that internet streaming services must pay 5 percent of their Canadian revenues to support a variety of Canadian broadcasting programming. That decision came before the commission completed work on foundational issues such as identifying what qualifies as Canadian content or determining how existing contributions from streaming services would be treated for the purposes of the regulation.
>The result: potential increased consumer costs, multiple legal challenges, and now the cancellation of tens of millions of dollars in sponsorships by Netflix. These cancellations will hit younger creators particularly hard since much of the sponsorship is focused on new creative development. For example, the Globe and Mail reports that Netflix funded roughly 90 percent of ImagineNATIVE’s year-round development programs.
>All of it is now at risk due to the uncertainty associated with whether the contribution will count for regulatory purposes. The lost sponsorship was entirely predictable as critics (myself included) warned that millions in new mandated payments would come primarily from shuffling existing spending and result in little new money.
> **Canadian businesses now face higher advertising costs, which will likely be passed along to consumers and lead to smaller ad budgets for print publishers at the very time that government policy is trying to increase advertising on those platforms**. Moreover, Canadian business sectors could face billions in retaliatory tariffs since the U.S. can target whatever sectors it wants.
>There is nothing wrong with regulating tech companies and ensuring that they pay their fair share. However, by demanding these companies bankroll government policy objectives through billions in new taxes and payments without fully fleshing out the regulatory frameworks or remaining open to alternative policy approaches, there was always a risk that they would respond by hiking consumer prices or cancelling support to meet the new budget demands by redirecting funding elsewhere.
>**The surprise isn’t that this is precisely what is happening but rather that the government ignored the repeated warning signs that this was the likely outcome.**
My personal experience is that the people who are the biggest social media haters are the ones who are terminally online commenting a million times a day. I’m not saying it’s like not a bad thing for society, especially shit like TikTok and Snapchat, but there’s more tolerance and understanding for alcohol addiction and drug addiction these days than for social media.