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Feb 23 • 3 tweets • 1 min read
Predictable event unfolds as predicted.
Canadian legacy news organizations had two options: pursue a risky and potentially fatal strategy of confrontation with companies thousands of times their size, or, NOT do that, and just continue to benefit from the traffic those companies sent them.

They chose poorly.
I'm in no way blind to the problems the tech giants pose. But I'm also not a moron, and know a shakedown when I see one. Canadian media is shaking down the tech companies, and no one should be shocked the richer, more powerful tech companies aren't interested in being robbed.

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More from @mattgurney

Matt Gurney Profile picture
Feb 22
I'm going to turn in early tonight, I think, but I want to share a silly (as in absurd) little scenario I like to use to describe Canadian complacency some times.

Let me sketch out a little scene for you all.
You've retired to the country. You've got a nice home on a nice piece of land. Rolling hills, gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, great views in all directions. You've got a few neighbours, but none are too close at hand. A bit of a walk to the nearest neighbour's place.
You've got a wraparound deck. You take in the sunrises and the sunsets every day on your deck. Just enjoying the peaceful views. One morning, you're on the deck in your robe and comfy slippers, steaming mug of coffee or tea in hand, waiting for the sunrise.

And huh what's that.
Read 10 tweets
Matt Gurney Profile picture
Feb 22
I've come back to this a few times. Just mulling it over.

This is, suffice it to say, not an optimal way for members of the governing party to be contextualizing matters of national security.
I've said this before in other contexts, and I intend this comment as a concerned citizen and not as a partisan critic, but it would be REALLY helpful if our federal Liberals familiarized themselves with the concept of blowback and accepted they aren't immune to it.
Hey so like a lot of people are freaked out by COVID and some of them are reacting in harmful, misinformed ways.

FRINGE MINORITY WITH UNACCEPTABLE VIEWS.

Hey your gun-control bill goes a lot further than you guys are saying.

DISINFORMATION FEAR-MONGERING.
Read 4 tweets
Matt Gurney Profile picture
Feb 3
I'm busy today so I won't be online much, but the Liberals withdrawing their gun control bill is very, very interesting and a major political setback for them.

Remember, they were insisting the critics of their bill were spreading "misinformation" while they lied to defend it.
Then they came around to admitting, okay, fine, we're doing what we've denied we were doing, but we have to do it, and we will do it.

And then today, suddenly, well, okay, fine, we won't do it.
I'll have to ponder this for a bit, but again, it's very interesting. This is a big political defeat, but maybe more significantly, this might suggest they've come to agree with what I was saying in December: they've taken too many trips to this well. It's dry.
Read 6 tweets
Matt Gurney Profile picture
Feb 2
With a new season of Star Trek: Picard coming out soon, I went back and reread my long (!) review of the first season, which also served as a brief behind-the-scenes history of what brought Jean-Luc Picard back onto the screen.

And .... hmmm. mattgurney.substack.com/p/star-trek-pi…
Since I wrote that, we've had a second season of Picard, and now we have the final one coming up. I'm looking forward to the final episodes, very much so, and I'm going in with a wide-open mind. It's interesting, though, to read my review of the first, knowing what I do now.
A major theme of my review of the first season was how I was glad that Star Trek had given The Next Generation an honourable sendoff, and that it was free to go in new directions without having to tell any more Next Generation stories.

The new season seems like a new TNG story.
Read 7 tweets
Matt Gurney Profile picture
Jan 26
That press conference, eh?

Not gonna cut it.

Also not convinced there's anything else they can do in the immediate term, so definitely playing the "been seen to be doing something" card.
The challenge here is that we have

A. Long-running systemic issues that will take years to address, and only then with sustained political and financial effort.

and ...

B. Immediate short-term and high-viz symptoms popping up on a daily basis.
You can't solve B without solving A. You also can't solve A quickly, so you're left managing the fallout — human and political — of B.

It's not gonna matter much.
Read 5 tweets
Matt Gurney Profile picture
Jan 26
As I just said on my radio show, I don't have any objections to a national summit. Let's have one! Get the experts together. Collect data, consult leaders and stakeholders. All good.

But! The summit must be a precursor to action, not another goddamned substitute for action.
There is something broken in our political culture — I dunno if it's at the elected official level, the bureaucratic level, or some mixture of both. But process and appearances has largely supplanted action and effect.
That's why we get two retired supreme court justices doing back-to-back reports on sexual misconduct in the military while the PMO averts its gaze from Canada's top soldier being accused of sexual misconduct. It's why we got a task force instead of passports.
Read 5 tweets

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