I was doing tech support on the phone for my family’s ISP at the age of 12. We worked our asses off and not a day went by that we weren’t supporting our customers, even Christmas.

For all our trouble, we got the ability to actually meaningfully sell our services ripped out from under us because of regulatory capture perpetrated by the Canadian telecom oligopoly. Broadband internet was now at a price point of interest to consumers and we wanted to resell it at a fair price, but Bell/Rogers/etc. pushed the CRTC to allow them to wholesale at any price rather than a regulated one. They won, and 25% small business market share turned into 5% within just a few years.

They can jam this noise about working hard and hustling up their asses, because we built a successful business and had it destroyed in a penstroke. Canada is just a bunch of oligopolies in a trench coat. Our politicians act surprised that no one wants to invest in Canadian businesses (including our own pension funds lol) but can you blame them? The regulatory and competitive environments here are fucking terrible.