I moved to Toronto 5 months ago with my Canadian husband. On our first night with my in-laws, I felt the walls of Canadian culture shock closing in on me. We retreated to my husband's childhood bedroom, twin beds and all, and sought refuge online.   

"How about something from the trusty Netflix queue?" the husband asked. Mmm, no dice. Our queue was mysteriously missing and half the items in it were no longer available for streaming.

A Sopranos binge on HBO GO to make me feel better? Also not allowed up north.  

Ok then, perhaps a guilty pleasure episode on Hulu? "We're sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed within the United States."

Crying to my favorite sad Spotify playlist or Pandora station? Nope, not even that.  

We spent that first night pathetically watching TV anchor blooper compilations on YouTube, like the last 10 years of streaming technology had never happened.     

There are boring legal reasons for this (copyright issues) and techie workarounds (VPN adjustments) and companies that manage to please internationally (Songza, Wattpad, I love you).   But in retrospect, it was a learning moment. The internet is international but I wasn't living in the internet. I was living in another country, with rules and codes and laws of its own.   

Welcome to Canada. Please check your urls at the border.