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Comment by chongli | Hacker News Reader

Netflix is just a service that packages up Americana to sell around the world.

And in so doing, drowns out local culture. The CBC has the production of Canadian cultural content (CanCon) as part of its mandate. Why must everyone in the world watch American TV? Wouldn't it ultimately be better if every culture produced their own content and then we could maintain some local identity?

The word imperialism is not being used lightly, here. TV has an enormous impact on a society. It influences how people think, which in turn can influence their politics.

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I wonder if it would actually be better for the world to keep moving towards a common culture, assuming that culture is open enough to absorb the best parts of other cultures. There's a sense amongst the Canadian cultural elite that Canadian culture needs to be protected from American cultural imperialism, when really they're trying to preserve what's left of Britishness (at least in anglo Canada).

Can't people still choose though? In that sense there’s no “must”. Those who want to watch Canadian cultural content can freely do so, and the same is valid for those who prefer Netflix.

Why shouldn’t everyone in the world have the choice of watching American tv?

The question is not whether people can choose; people can always choose. The issue is what choices you give to people and in what prominence they're placed. Burying a show in the archives is different from featuring it on the front page. Under what criteria should it appear on the front page? If it's only popularity, that'll bias in favour of American shows, since the US has 10x the population of Canada.

If Canadian shows are on the front page, they have a much better chance of getting views and thus surviving, so that people have a choice to keep watching. Canadians can and will find out about the most popular American shows through other media channels, so why do those shows also need to be on the front page?

You say people can always choose and on the next phrase argue for limiting that choice...

I don’t know to which front page you’re referring but honestly the comments from the CBC head quoted in the article sound like those of a bureaucrat who’s seeing her power to influence what Canadians should watch being diminished by Netflix’s presence, and being angry about it.

Yet at the same time the thing my kids love watching the most on Netflix is Paw Patrol, a animated commercial to sell dog toys, produced in: Canada (we live in Europe btw).

So I don't think the problem is Netflix draining out local culture with foreign ones.

A large fraction of Netflix content is not produced in the US. At the core it’s an economic not a cultural argument. The issue is not the American nature of content but rather competing with high quality forein content.

That just makes the cultural argument stronger if now its not just the USA sending holy wood but now the entire world.

If it’s the entire world, then Netflix is just a platform and Canada can easily export content on Netflix. Making the imperialist argument meaningless.

Damn, those imperialist bulk cargo ships...

>Wouldn't it ultimately be better if every culture produced their own content and then we could maintain some local identity?

Many cultures do produce their own content, but it's often less entertaining than American content due to budget constraints, censorship restrictions or other government interference.

I think seeing at this as cultural imperialism is incorrect - it might be so if the US were somehow forcing other countries to watch American content, or if Netflix only served American content, but neither of those are the case. This just a matter of commerce in a global marketplace.

What would be better is people having a choice, not being kept in a government-enforced media cocoon in order to keep foreign influence from affecting their cultural identity.

No one is limiting what you can watch on CBC or any other Canadian content platform, why should I be locked into watching locally produced content I don't resonate with online?

Regulating media consumption online, a traditionally global marketplace, to your national content is just a terrible idea in every sense.

Netflix isn't really "online". Yes, it uses the internet as its transport layer. But it in all other respects is a closed content delivery platform, akin to a cable subscription but with the convenience of on-demand rather than traditionally scheduled broadcast TV.

The CBC has rightly identified this. They know that most people get Netflix by plugging a box into their TV, just as they used to with a cable box. The CBC is not proposing the regulation of the web, it's proposing regulation of a platform that is essentially cable delivered over a different pipe.

Edit: moreover, the content that is on Netflix isn't open like the web, it's closed content protected by regional distribution contracts.

How would you regulate Netflix then? The CRTC mandates that 55% of broadcasted content in Canada through traditional means is Canadian based content, with on demand streaming services I can't possibly see a healthy way to regulate this.

What about YouTube premium? They offer content more akin to traditional television, and it's very much American dominated. Is that "not really 'online'" either? Does it need the same manner of regulation that it seems they're looking to impose on Netflix?

Both Netflix and YouTube have far more content than what is promoted up front to every user. The regulation need not insist that 55% of the content archives be Canadian (that would be absurd). The regulation could focus on what content is featured on the home page.

So nobody need fear their favourite Netflix show being taken away. This would only affect what users see when they first sit down to watch. That would have a powerful effect. I think it would be enough to keep Canadian shows going so that Canadian culture can be maintained in a distinct form.

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