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[Priamo Gregory]

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Subscribing to Netflix was easy. A no-frills screen greeted me with an offer of free first month with 3 plans: basic, standard and premium. The plans differed on availability of HD formats and number of screens I can watch on at the same time. I selected the standard plan with option of HD on 2 devices. Registering with email Id and credit card information was a simple 4 step process. I have not yet learnt to trust Facebook with my financials, so I ignored the sign-up with Facebook option.

Netflix Canada has some 4000 titles with a mix of movies, TV shows and documentaries. That grows to almost 8000, if the user ignores Netflix EULA by using IP switching to access Netflix US. Subtitle can be customized for language and other font settings. There are tonnes of other customizations features as well.

Shomi seems to be betting on TV shows more than the movies. Some early reports suggest that Shomi has more than 160 TV titles in its kitty. Others suggest Shomi has promised more than 340 TV shows and 1200 movies. WTC, my favorites like Seinfeld, Big Bang Theory and Sopranos are missing from both these services.

Shomi's streaming has some work cut out for itself. I encountered buffering messages mid-way through the shows. The good news: the service is available through cable set-top boxes thus saving the buffering woes and of course - the internet bill. The bad news: many subscribers are doing away with their cable. In the long run, better streaming experience will be the key.

Netflix offers two ways for contacting the customer service - chat and phone. Both display wait-time which takes CX a notch higher. Shomi offers multiple ways of contacting the customer service including chat, phone, email and tweeting. Both services have a frequently asked questions section with a feedback module attached.

Netflix started its streaming services way back in 2007 and launched its services in Canada in 2010. It is sad that local players took more than four years to play catch up. Further, it is not clear if Shomi is a half-hearted attempt to slow the migration from cable to online in view of expiring contracts with content producers or a genuine effort to wow the customers.

I recently ordered a new e-reader. The biggest decision was not so much which specific device to buy, but rather which ecosystem to marry into. Will the device I buy tie me to the Kindle ecosystem or the Kobo ecosystem? And which one is better?

Kobo, being originally a Canadian company, fares much better in Canada, by allowing people to borrow ebooks from the public library through Overdrive directly from the device, making the process even smoother than the one experienced by American Kindle users.

Nevertheless, if you are an American reader, Kindle is a no-brainer, unless you have ideological reasons against getting an Amazon device. This is why it is estimated that over 83% of ebook readers in the US are Kindles.

This way you could have the Kindle catalog and the ability to borrow library books, even in Canada. However, these devices tend to be quite a bit more expensive than even the top of the line Kindle or Kobo, they are not exactly bug-free, and perhaps they lose something by adding more capabilities.

If you are looking for an e-reader, less might be more. Part of the beauty of a device like the Kindle and Kobo lies in their distraction-free nature. The devices are simply not capable of doing much else but reading.

Antonio Cangiano is an Engineering Manager and AI Specialist at IBM. He authored Ruby on Rails for Microsoft Developers (Wrox, 2009) and Technical Blogging (The Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2012, 2019). He is also the Marketing Lead for Cognitive Class, an educational initiative which he helped grow from zero to over 3 Million students. You can follow him on Twitter.

Thanks for this article Antonio. I was pretty sure to get the Kindle Paperwhite but after watching your video clip and reading the article I will be going for a Kobo device (as a good Canadian). I primarily read in bed before going to sleep. Which device do you recommend?

Thank you, Katherine. Kobo has currently 531,130 books in French. Kindle is supposed to have more (i.e., 800K+), but there are two caveats: 1) How many of these are available in the Canadian Kindle Store? 2) How many of these are low-quality self-published titles?

My recommendation would be for you to write down a list of 10 books in French that you want to read. Include some less popular titles in there, too. Then see how many of these are available on Kobo and how many on Amazon. And while you are there, you can also compare pricing. That should help you assess a little better which of the two would work best for your specific circumstances.

Thank you for this helpful comparison. As an established Amazon customer, it seems so convenient to pop into my account, order the ebook, and have it available on my devices. There are a couple things that, if I understand them, give me pause about their ecosystem.

Great review. I am still torn between both of them since I live in Canada. Do you think in Canada I can get a larger number of books for cheaper still?. Becasue I was wondering if things might have changed. Thank you

First, CDRs allow investors to purchase fractions of shares. For example, if each share of Netflix is trading at $275 USD per share. Each Netflix CDR might represent 1/20th of a share for $18 CAD (after considering the value of each base currency). Fractional ownership might be helpful to some small investors who cannot afford to buy a whole share.

With CDRs, CIBC as the sponsor/issuer will dynamically hedge the foreign exchange price fluctuations between the US and Canadian dollar values. This means CDR investors can separate the value of the underlying stock from the changes in value between the US and Canadian dollar.

But like fractional ownership, the benefits of using CDRs for their currency hedging benefits is overblown. Investors should wonder whether the value of the US dollar is a risk that needs to be hedged at all or whether Canadian investors are better off accepting this risk instead. Since, during economic downturns, the US dollar typically gains in value (for a variety of reasons). This natural hedge provides Canadian investors with diversification and a cushion during downturns. Canadian investors should wonder whether holding some investments in US dollars is a benefit they would want to protect against?

CIBC is entitled to adjust the CDR Ratio to compensate CIBC for actual out-of-pocket costs and expenses incurred in connection with non-ordinary Corporate Actions (such as distributions or exchanges of securities upon a merger event or spin-off transaction), but the amount of such costs and expenses will not exceed 0.10% of the aggregate value of the CDRs of the relevant series according to CIBC.

A hidden cost of using CDRs is their liquidity as represented by the bid/ask spread. Each time an investor places a market order, they pay for the difference between the highest price other investors are willing to buy and the lowest price other investors are willing to sell.

At the time of writing, there is a 1 cent difference between bids and asks for Apple Inc trading on the NASDAQ. Compared to 5 cents on the Apple CDR. Based on their respective share prices, this represents an embedded trading fee of 0.0076% for the US listed stock and 0.25% for the CDR. This means the ADR is more than 32 times more expensive to trade based on their bid/ask spreads (even though the overall amount is less than 1% per transaction).

Compared to some low cost index funds, CDRs are more expensive. According to my post about low cost index funds, the fees associated with CDRs are much higher. Canadian investors can find many index ETFs with fees under 0.10%. Whereas based on the information provided by CIBC on their website, the cost of CDRs may be as high as 0.60% annually.

A minor concern for CDR investors is corporate governance. When investors hold US listed stocks directly. They are entitled to vote as shareholders. But when investors hold CDRs, there is another layer between themselves and the company they own. This adds a small complication to the corporate governance and voting process.

When a company experiences a share split or corporate re-organization, CDR shareholders will receive the same outcome. The beneficial tax and ownership circumstances will virtually flow through to the CDR holder as it is designed. But, doing so might also bring with it the same costs the investor was trying to avoid in the first place by using the CDR.

An important tax consideration for Canadian investors using CDRs is the treatment of the US withholding tax. Under the tax treaty between Canada and the US, Canadians get credit for the tax paid on dividends from US listed companies withheld at source by the IRS. This ensures Canadian investors in US stocks are not doubled taxed on their dividends.

To avoid this withholding tax, Canadian non-taxable investors (such as registered charities) can file a W-8 form in certain cases. And, US dividends received within registered accounts such as RSPs & RIFs are not subject to the withholding tax on US dividends either (not TFSAs though) by way of the tax treaty.

According to CIBC, CDR investors will have their US dividend tax withheld at source and receive the net amount. So, investors holding CDRs in registered accounts should be careful and file a W-8 to avoid this requirement.

It is unclear whether a CDR is Canadian, or US situated property for estate tax purposes. Investors who might otherwise have US estate tax liabilities after considering their CDRs might want to choose another vehicle (such as a Canadian based corporation) to hold their US stocks and avoid CDRs altogether for this reason.

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