Do Not Pass Go with Peter Nowak

Do Not Pass Go with Peter Nowak
  • 5.0 (1)
  • News Commentary
  • Updated Weekly

Your very own survival guide for our monopolized times. Do Not Pass Go is a weekly podcast and newsletter from veteran journalist Peter Nowak, reporting on and exposing corporate concentration and monopoly issues in Canada. www.donotpassgo.ca

  1. 5d ago

    Canada: A Land of Premium Mediocre

    Have you noticed that even run-of-the-mill products and services are now expensive? Whether it’s a car or a concert ticket or even just a loaf of bread, regular items that were priced regularly just a few years ago are now being sold as luxuries. It’s no accident, according Eemaan Khan, a Canadian expat working as a strategy director at ExecCap Advisors in Chicago. It’s the product of a lack of competition across sectors, which is allowing providers to get away with charging exorbitant prices on thoroughly mid products. The concept is known as “premium mediocre,” coined by management consultant Venkatesh Rao in 2017, and refers to products, services and experiences that use marketing, aesthetics and false luxury to make average, everyday things premium. Canada – and Canadians – are particularly ripe for it, Khan recently wrote on his Make Canada Think Harder newsletter, because of a conditioned aversion to risk and failure. It’s a feedback loop that prevents competition from happening, which in turn keeps pricing going up and acceptable standards on what we’re being sold going down. He joins the Do Not Pass Go to discuss premium mediocre and how Canadians can shake their penchant for accepting middling results at high costs. Check out Khan’s newsletter here. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    Canada: A Land of Premium Mediocre

  2. Aug 25

    The Yukon’s Connectivity Crisis

    In June, the Yukon government wrote angry letters to Bell, the CRTC and the federal government to complain about poor and degrading wireless service in the territory. It’s not the first time elected officials have resorted to doing so – the territory’s premier penned a similar missive two years ago. The continuing problems suggest the pleas for improvement are not being answered. For its part, Bell – which holds a virtual monopoly over fibre and wireless networks in Yukon – says the economics don’t make sense. The regulator and feds don’t appear to be helping much, yet. At a time when more eyes are on arctic security and wildfires are increasing in frequency and intensity, the ongoing connectivity crisis in the North can no longer be ignored – it’s a problem that needs to be addressed urgently. Jennifer Gehmair, the Yukon minister of Economic Development, Tourism and Culture, joins Do Not Pass Go to discuss how the competitive situation in the territories – or rather the lack of it – means that different solutions involving government and regulators are needed in everything from telecom services to grocery availability. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    The Yukon’s Connectivity Crisis

  3. Aug 18

    Deflating the AI Bubble with Cory Doctorow

    If you’ve ever used a bike, you’ve been a centaur – a human whose natural abilities have been enhanced by a piece of technology. But if you’ve ever used modern artificial intelligence, you may be a reverse centaur – someone who has done more for the machine than the other way around. That’s the premise of The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence Before It’s Too Late, the latest non-fiction book by Cory Doctorow. As it stands, he argues, the tech industry has been selling investors on the promise that AI will soon be able to replace vast swaths of human jobs, thereby saving employers untold millions or billions of dollars. But in reality, AI’s capabilities have been hugely overstated while the resultant investment gold rush has irretrievably sunk billions of dollars and caused immense ecological harm via related data centres. AI will be a useful tool, says Doctorow, a prolific science-fiction author, journalist, digital rights activist and credited coiner of the term “enshittification,” but policy makers and the public need to be able to see through the bubble being peddled by tech bros for their own interests. He returns to the Do Not Pass Go podcast to discuss how policy makers, investors and the public can best use AI, rather than have it use them. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    Deflating the AI Bubble with Cory Doctorow

  4. Aug 4

    Losing Sleep Over the Mattress Duopoly

    We’re safe from monopolies when we sleep, right? If only that were so. Over the past few years, a wave of consolidation has created sleep business juggernauts in both Canada and the United States. In 2012, manufacturers Tempur-Pedic and Sealy merged to become Somnigroup, before going on to acquire Mattress Firm – the largest U.S. sleep retailer – last year. Earlier this year, the Kentucky-based company announced a $2.5 billion (U.S.) acquisition of component maker Leggett & Platt, setting itself up to become a vertically integrated powerhouse with an estimated 40-per-cent share of the U.S. market. Meanwhile in Canada, Sleep Country has been on its own acquisition binge. Aside from gobbling up a host of online bed-in-a-box sellers including Casper Canada, Endy and Silk & Snow, the Toronto-based company last year acquired the rights to Bed, Bath & Beyond, with plans to relaunch the brand. And just recently, the company paid $702 million to acquire Minneapolis-based retailer Sleep Number, marking its expansion into the United States. Sleep Country says the deal makes it the world’s second-biggest sleep-oriented company after, you guessed it, Somnigroup. Nate Cangemi has more than 20 years experience in the sleep business and is the proprietor of Golden Dreams Mattress, an independent retailer based in Carslbad, Calif. He has been vocal of this growing consolidation on his social media channels, arguing that it is resulting in higher prices, homogenized choices for consumers and declining innovation. He joins the Do Not Pass Go podcast to discuss how concentration and vertical integration is literally preventing people from getting a better night’s sleep. Check out Golden Dreams Mattress here and on Instagram. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    Losing Sleep Over the Mattress Duopoly

  5. Jul 28

    The News Media's Trust Spiral and How to Reverse It

    The news for the news media isn’t great. A steady stream of surveys are finding that public trust in news outlets is on the decline. A recent report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, for example, found that only 37 per cent of Canadians trust the news overall, which was down from 55 per cent a decade ago. Many of the news media’s problems are self-inflicted, but some of them are also the product of forces we talk a lot about here – corporatization, consolidation and, yes, enshittification. It’s just another industry that has problems stemming from giant companies extracting profits at the expense of everything else. Tara Henley is a journalist who went viral in 2022 after she left CBC and criticized the institution for how far it had strayed from objectivity. She has spent the past few years focusing on these issues through her Substack, Lean Out. Now, she has focused all of that research and commentary into a new book, The Trust Spiral: Why the Media Needs Objectivity, which covers both the internal and external failures that are showing up as these concerning survey statistics. Her book is a sober diagnosis of what has gone wrong, as well as a plain prescription for how the news media can restore the public’s faith in it. She joins the Do Not Pass Go podcast to talk about the trust spiral and how to reverse it. Check out Tara’s Substack here and her new book here. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    The News Media's Trust Spiral and How to Reverse It

  6. Jul 21

    Inside StubHub's World Cup Scandals

    The World Cup is over and we have a winner: after an exciting and drama-filled tournament, Spain has been crowned the ultimate champion. But there’s also a loser – and that is clearly StubHub. The biggest name in ticket resale had issues before the World Cup, but the company is emerging from the event beset by problems of its own making. Texas and British Columbia are investigating StubHub for selling tickets that didn’t exist, consumers have filed class-action lawsuits in New York and Vancouver over the same reasons, and Ontario has added the company to its Consumer Beware List. Perhaps the most serious problem is the revelation that StubHub chief executive Eric Baker also runs a mass scalping side hustle through the website. Many of the stories over the past few months, including the Baker bombshell, were turned up by CBC News investigative reporter Dave Seglins. His interest in the mess that is the ticketing business goes back nearly a decade further to a hidden camera investigation of a scalper convention in Las Vegas, where he and his colleagues caught Ticketmaster representatives not only encouraging mass resellers to use their platform, but recruiting them to do so. That story figured into the recent U.S. antitrust case against Ticketmaster and its parent Live Nation, just as Seglins’ latest coverage has sparked the various government probes and lawsuits against StubHub. No other journalist in Canada has covered this field as closely or with as much impact. In this episode, Seglins joins Do Not Pass Go to take us behind the scenes of the ticketing business, and to discuss why concerts and sporting events are deserving of serious attention from policy makers. Check out the story on Eric Baker here, and the 2018 scalper convention investigation here. And here is the interview with Live Nation executive Dan Wall referred to in this episode. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    Inside StubHub's World Cup Scandals

  7. Jul 14

    What Every Pet Owner Should Know About Rising Vet Bills

    If you’ve got a pet in your household - and half of all Canadian households have at least one - this podcast episode is for you. We’re talking about how consolidation in the veterinary industry is rapidly driving up prices, and what’s being done about it. A CBC investigation last year found that before 2010, almost all veterinary clinics in Canada were owned by the vets themselves. Fast forward to the present and more than half of emergency and specialty hospitals and more than 20 per cent of all clinics are owned by just six corporations. As is the case with virtually every industry where consolidation is occurring, prices are going up – and dramatically so in this case. A survey of pet owners last year by Gallup and PetSmart Charities of Canada found that more than half of respondents had declined recommended veterinary care or skipped a visit, with two-thirds citing cost as the reason. Having to pay sky-high fees to get pets healthy, or worse, not being able to afford the cost of doing so, is often devastating to families. The rolling up of the industry is getting a lot of attention as a result and it’s inevitable that regulators and governments are going to start investigating. Maybe some will take action. But in the meantime, some of those still independent vets are trying to disrupt this norm. Emma Harris is the chief executive and, along with Dr. Brendon Laing, the co-founder of Novel, a new vet clinic that opened last year in Burlington, Ont. As the name implies, they’re trying to do the vet business a bit differently, driven largely by the desire to make sure that pet care is affordable so that families don’t have to make that terrible decision of foregoing treatment with their fur babies. Harris is also finishing up her PhD at the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph, where her thesis delves into the growing overlap of vet care and big business. She’s the perfect person to talk about how private equity is driving up the cost of pet care but also investing in necessary advancements, and how disruption and better clinics may be the best counter to industry consolidation. Check out Novel here and a Globe and Mail feature on the clinic here. CORRECTION: A previous version of the show notes for this episode referred to Dr. Laing as Ms. Harris’ husband. They are not, in fact, married. We regret the error. An audio clarification will be made in the next episode. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    What Every Pet Owner Should Know About Rising Vet Bills

  8. Jul 7

    Video Game Layoffs Fuelling Historic Union Movement

    In December last year, Ubisoft Halifax employees voted overwhelmingly in favour of establishing a union – 74 per cent said yes. Just a few weeks later, the French company shut the studio down and laid off everyone. Legal action followed, which the two sides settled in April, only for Ubisoft to then close its Winnipeg studio in June, laying off a further 65 employees. Those layoffs – more than 45,000 globally since 2022, with 8,200 so far this year including Microsoft’s news this week of an additional 3,200 Xbox cuts – are what’s driving the unionization push, not just at Ubisoft but across the industry. Employees at U.S. studios owned by Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax Media and Sega of America have all unionized recently. Last year, workers in the United States and Canada partnered with the Communications Workers of America to announce the United Videogame Workers-CWA Local 9433, marking the historic launch of an industry-wide labour movement. In this episode, Ubisoft Halifax lead programmer and union leader Jon Huffman takes us behind the scenes of the studio’s move to get organized, and he explains how consolidation and financialization are forcing workers across the industry to finally fight back. Check out Huffman’s new independent games studio, Phantom Rowboat. Do Not Pass Go is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Get full access to Do Not Pass Go at www.donotpassgo.ca/subscribe

    Video Game Layoffs Fuelling Historic Union Movement
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Your very own survival guide for our monopolized times. Do Not Pass Go is a weekly podcast and newsletter from veteran journalist Peter Nowak, reporting on and exposing corporate concentration and monopoly issues in Canada. www.donotpassgo.ca

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