If they could increase profitability by raising their prices before the tax, why wouldn’t they have already done it?

Companies base their prices on what the market will bear, not necessarily on their costs.

If one company in an industry faces higher costs, they may not be able to raise prices, as they would lose customers.

If all companies in an industry suddenly face higher costs, that shifts the supply+demand equilibrium.

They're not just competing against other companies though, they're also competing against piracy which places a much needed downward pressure on prices.

EDIT: OK I got educated here. Must drink my coffee before posting next time.

Companies don't seek to maximize revenue. They seek to maximize profits.

Looking at the demand curve alone does not tell you the equilibrium price.

If every point on the supply curve increases by 5%, this will almost change the price at which the supply and demand curves intersect.

Because it wouldn't have increased profitability?

See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence

> If they could increase profitability by raising their prices before the tax, why wouldn’t they have already done it?

Because now they have an external reason they can point to, similar to “inflation”… even if the extra charges end up being mostly profits.

Public funded news is a terrible idea because it's too easy to become corrupted by politics. This makes it easier for Netflix to raise prices, but it is what the people seem to want. Otherwise I guess we'll find out at the elections next year.

> Public funded news is a terrible idea because it's too easy to become corrupted by politics. This makes it easier for Netflix to raise prices

This argument is illogical. Netflix does not carry news, so how is that affected one way or another by public funded news?

This “idea” has been implemented for decades around the world with lots of success.

Yes it's just another tax on Canadian customers to fund the CBC et al and whatever diverse content means.

This idea is not new nor uniquely Canadian. The purpose of all public media is to make programming and reporting possible that is seen as socially valuable but an advertising/click/like-driven business model cannot sustain.

The money for it needs to be diverted from somewhere. The UK has had TV licensing to fund the BBC:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un...

That's great, almost no one is going to watch it still if they weren't already before. There's tons of existing subsidies that already at every level of gov.

This isn't the 90s when they could force feed us bad Canadian produced TV shows on Canadian TV channels. Netflix gives people the choice of global content now and there's more opportunity and money floating around for young up and coming filmmakers than ever before.

Perfect, you have the choice of 1000s of bland AI-written slop and no local (or even national) independent press. Peachy.

There is such a thing as a public good outside of the logic of The Market.

Netflix can choose whether to increase prices. You can choose whether to pay Netflix. I know it sounds crazy but a Netflix sub is an optional item

Again

Competitors can always licenses content and offer it at a lower rate. Netflix is blob storage and CDN, with a helping of a comedian production arm.

The opposition doesn't seem to be smarter that's the real problem

A business operating in a jurisdiction is a privilege. If you don’t like the rules, leave.