I mean, he's not wrong.

✨capitalism✨

Also the most boring game

If you’re playing monopoly, isn’t everyone a loser? 😝

Which is what the game of monopoly was designed to teach.

in Canada we play Poleconomy.

Oligopoly actually.

My dad said I already own Park Place so whatever dice you roll is whatever

If Sobey's wants to fix prices high, they have to make exactly two phonecalls before they do it. Totally different. /s

oligopoly.

Here's the thing. Imagine you are at Disney Studios in Burbank, California. Leave the lot and take a walk through Johnny Carson Park. Now you're in NBC Burbank Studios. Keep going and you'll find yourself in Warner Brother's Studios. On the other side of the Lakeside Golf Club is Universal Studios. A few months ago the CEOs of these studios were regularly meeting to discuss what they were going to offer the writer's and actor's unions. These CEOs are all supposed to hate each other but now they are like buddies. Seriously, a couple of weeks ago Warner Brother's and Disney announced "The streaming bundle of Hulu, Max and Disney+ is hitting the market today at the price of $16.99 a month with advertising and $29.99 without." Kevin Feige said in an interview recently "if people go to the movie theater and see one of their movies and it has a trailer for one of our movies then that's good for us."

Oh and here's another data point.

"On January 14, 2020, Universal and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment announced that they would partner on a 10-year multinational joint-venture. In North America, their physical distribution operations were merged into a company named Studio Distribution Services, LLC."

Historically, the name came from Dave Nichol, who was president of the company for decades. He actually had a very strong hand in the selection of products that were included in the product line.

Apparently all kinds of people would pitch product ideas at him, and would taste test them and pick only ones he liked. The idea of "President's Choice" wasn't to be cheapo no name products, but unique and distinctive stuff personally picked by the company's president.

And Dave wasn't just some guy in the corner office. In his prime he was a Canadian personality, and you saw him in TV commercials. Once he left Loblaws in the '90s the President's Choice stuff lost its panache and meaning.

If he could get away with it, he'd rename is Peasant's Choice.

Oh wait. He probably can get away with it.

That’s exactly how cable works in the States, you only have one real choice depending on where you live. If you try and cancel over their atrocious service there’s a very real chance they’ll ask what other choices you think you have.

Susan Crawford wrote on and talked about this (mis)handling of telecoms in the US context years ago, the government letting the companies divide regions up and ensure a lack of competition.

My reading of the situation in Canada for internet and wireless is that it was a historical mix of:

• lacking political will/interest to govern from day one
• a policy of letting the free market run until it’s a major problem
• follow the US lead for anything new
• and support the (then) recently de-regulated incumbent (Bell) to dominate
• give competitive advantages to Canadian companies vs allowing foreign competition even if it means worse outcomes for Canadian consumers (better to protect the Canadian economy from foreign interests than to ensure consumer best interests).

Didn't a Telus exec confirm this publicly? It's a little more than a theory.

I don't know about elsewhere in Canada, but here, Bell and Rogers compete directly in the mobile space, and Bell competes directly with cable, and all of those options have multiple resellers at half the price, thanks to CRTC.

Are the prices the lowest in the world? No. Can you tell a company to fuck off? Yes, you can.

I don't know. The Canada described by OP might be a foreign land compared to the part of Canada I know.

It is more like an oil company, a mining company, and a logging company all on each others shoulders in a trenchcoat

Probably wanna delete this before the Irvings put a hit out on you

Until Bell decides to snuff it out. They'll use their "legal" division (aka the CRTC) to outlaw it and no-one will squawk about it because: if you control the media, you control 'the people's' voice. We live in the shittiest timeline.

sorry about that by the way

And the banks, and the oil companies.

4 separate companies in one sector

Cannot relate.

In New Zealand it's the same, and 5 of those 6 are Australian.

And a haunted skeleton masquerading as a media mogul.

Burger King's Canada Coffeehouse

Lobslaw 🤣🤔🤣🤔🤣

I'm keeping that one.

There are actually three major telecom companies making up 85%+ of the market share: Bell, Rogers, and Telus. Don't be fooled by names like Virgin, Fido, and Koodo, as those are just the "lite" subsidiaries of the three major companies respectively.

For supermarkets there is Loblaws, as you said. But, it's not like Sobeys and Metro are much better, they just keep their robber-baron executives better hidden.

As a Canadian, what the hell is an Irving?

Weston family, so a fuckton of chains across Canada. But their main chain is Sobey's

Nah, those are just Brazilian tourists now