Ads-Stolen Time

 

What if we got paid for our stolen time?

Ever get REALLY pissed off at all the ads?

You just want to listen to music, watch a video, scroll for a few minutes or look something up — and suddenly you're being bombarded with advertisements.

Skip.

Wait.

Another ad.

Skip again.

And sometimes you don't even get a skip button.

It's exhausting.

And here's what really gets me:

They are taking our time.

YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms make money from our attention. Advertisers pay to reach us. Our eyeballs have economic value.

So why do we treat the time we spend watching those advertisements as if it has no value at all?

What if we turned the tables?

What if we started asking whether consumers could bring a class action over the enormous amount of time spent watching unwanted advertising?

I'm not saying a court has already decided that this is “stolen time.”

I'm asking whether it could become a legal claim worth investigating.

Let's do the math.

Imagine someone spends just 10 minutes a day watching advertisements.

That's more than 60 hours a year.

Over five years, that's roughly 300 hours.

Over ten years, roughly 600 hours.

That's weeks of your life.

And once those hours are gone, they're gone.

You can't put them back.

You can't refund them.

You can't make more time.

Yet someone else may have made money from your attention during those minutes.

So here's the question:

What is our time worth?

If we hypothetically valued that time at $20 an hour, 600 hours would be $12,000.

At $30 an hour, it would be $18,000.

At $50 an hour, it would be $30,000.

I'm NOT saying YouTube, Facebook or Instagram legally owe every person those amounts.

That's exactly what lawyers, evidence and courts would have to determine.

But I think the question deserves to be asked.

Maybe platforms should have to show us a receipt:

You watched 500 hours of content.

You watched 83 hours of advertisements.

Your attention generated advertising revenue.

Thank you for your business.

Imagine if we actually knew how much of our lives were being monetized.

And maybe consumers should have a real choice:

Pay with money — or don't pay with your time.

Because advertising isn't free when we're paying for it with our lives.

I don't want somebody else's product interrupting my painting.

I don't want a political advertisement interrupting my music.

I don't want another commercial stealing another little piece of my evening.

I hate ads.

And maybe I'm not the only one.

Maybe there are millions of people who are sick of being told that their attention belongs to somebody else.

So here's my question to the internet:

Should we investigate a class action for our stolen time?

Let's find out how much advertising time is being taken from consumers.

Let's find out how much money is being made from that attention.

Let's find out what the law says.

And let's find out whether our time has a value that somebody else has been profiting from.

Because if corporations can put a price on our attention...

maybe it's time we put a price on our time.

5 reflective questions

1. How many hours of your life do you think you've spent watching advertisements?

2. If advertisers pay for access to your attention, shouldn't you know what your attention is worth?

3. Would you join a class action asking whether consumers deserve compensation for time spent watching unwanted advertising?

4. If your time is finite and can never be replaced, can anyone legitimately say that it has no value?

10 hashtags

#StolenTime #ShowUsTheReceipt #IHateAds #YouTube #Facebook #Instagram #AttentionEconomy #ConsumerRights #DigitalRights #ClassAction

Call Service Disaster: The Hidden Scam Costing Canadians Millions

 

Call Service Disaster: The Hidden Scam Costing Canadians Millions

Call centres were supposed to help us.
A human voice.
A real solution.
A simple fix.

Instead, we’ve walked straight into a Call Service Disaster — a quietly growing national crisis, draining our time, our energy, and, shockingly, our money.

And now, with new reports and hard numbers coming out, it turns out the truth is worse than we thought.

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The CRA Has Officially Failed Canadians

Canada Revenue Agency call centres are collapsing under their own weight, and the proof is now public.

According to the Auditor General of Canada (2024–2025):

• Only 18% of callers reached an agent within CRA’s own 15-minute target.
• The average wait time is 31 minutes.
• In June 2025, only 5% of calls were answered within the standard.
• Accuracy is shockingly low:
  • 17% accuracy for general individual tax questions
  • Just over 54% for benefit or business-related questions
• Complaints about CRA call centres have risen 145% in recent years.
• In July 2024 alone, CRA deflected 1.5 million callers to automated systems.
• The agency’s call-centre outsourcing contracts ballooned from $50 million to $190 million.

Let that sink in:

Canadians trusted a government service.
The government quietly outsourced it.
The service became worse.
And taxpayers paid more anyway.

This isn’t a glitch.
This is a structural failure.

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Telecom Workers and Customers Have Known This for Years

Every Canadian has a story:

• The Rogers customer who couldn’t cancel his internet.
• People stuck on hold with Bell or Telus for hours trying to dispute billing errors.
• The Shaw “cancellation nightmare” era — where you needed five transfers and 90 minutes just to request a disconnection.

This isn’t customer service.
It’s corporate stonewalling.

Telecom companies deny playing games with wait times, but Canadians pay some of the highest telecom costs in the world, and service keeps getting worse.

Even with prices “declining” on paper, the reality is:

• Data still averages around $7 per GB
• Network access fees remain high
• Regional monopolies weaken competition

And now we know something else:

Canadians lose millions of dollars in mobile data just waiting on hold.

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The $18 Million Data Drain — The Cost of Waiting on Hold

Here’s the part no one talks about:

Every time you’re stuck on hold for 31 minutes with CRA or a telecom provider, and you’re on mobile data, you’re paying for it.

Using verified numbers:

• CRA receives 40–55 million calls a year.
• Roughly one-third of callers use mobile data.
• A phone call uses about 0.8 MB per minute (VoLTE data use).
• That’s 25 MB per call while stuck on hold.
• At roughly $7/GB, that’s 17 cents per call wasted.

Now factor in:

• Repeat calls (most people call 2–4 times per issue)
• Dropped calls
• Busy signals
• CRA’s own number: 1.5 million deflected callers in a single month
• Tax-season surges
• Telecom customers stuck in similar loops

The math brings us very close to:

🔥 An estimated $18 million per year burned in wasted mobile data across Canada.

Money that goes straight into telecom pockets — simply for making Canadians wait.

This is not an accident.
This is a business model.

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Who Is Holding Them Accountable?

If an ordinary worker ignored calls like this, they’d be fired.
If a small business treated customers this way, they’d shut down.

But telecom giants?
Government agencies?
They shrug.

Canadians pay more, wait longer, and get less.

This is exactly why it’s time for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) to step in and uncover:

• Why Canadians pay among the highest telecom fees in the developed world
• Why customer service and wait times are getting worse
• How much profit telecom and government contractors make from long wait times
• Whether intentional understaffing is being used to cut costs
• Whether Canadians’ wasted data is a hidden revenue stream
• What rights Canadians actually have when they can’t access essential services

This is bigger than inconvenience.
This is a national consumer-rights crisis.

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So What Can We Do? (Solutions)

Here are real, actionable steps:

1. Public Investigations

Demand an ICIJ or national inquiry into call-centre operations and telecom pricing.

2. Enforce Maximum Wait Times

Other countries legally mandate call-centre response times. Canada can too.

3. Ban Paid Mobile Data Usage for Calls to Government Services

Taxpayers should never pay out-of-pocket to access essential services.

4. Require Telecoms to Staff Properly

Penalties should apply when companies intentionally understaff support lines.

5. Transparent Reporting

Publish monthly metrics for:

• wait times
• dropped calls
• agent accuracy
• average resolution times

6. Provide Call-Back Systems By Default

A 31-minute average wait time is proof of failure.
A mandatory callback option should be the minimum standard.

7. Reinstate In-Person Help Desks

Human services require human support.

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10 Reflective Questions for Readers

1. Have you ever felt trapped on hold with a telecom or government service?
2. How much time do you think you’ve personally lost to call centres?
3. Should Canadians have to pay for mobile data just to access essential services?
4. Do you believe long wait times are incompetence — or intentional understaffing?
5. What would a fair telecom system look like to you?
6. Should CRA be allowed to outsource call centres when accuracy drops below 20%?
7. How does poor customer service impact trust in government?
8. What safeguards should exist to protect consumers from “wait-time exploitation”?
9. Would you support a public inquiry into telecom and call-centre practices?
10. How would your life improve if essential services answered calls within five minutes?

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Final Word: Canadians Deserve Better

This isn’t about impatience.
This is about dignity.

People are trying to fix benefits, taxes, housing issues, identity documents, internet bills, emergencies.
These call centres are the front lines of everyday life.

When no one answers, people lose income, housing, peace of mind, and hours of their lives.

This is a system failure — and it’s costing us millions.

It’s time to demand better.
It’s time to expose the Call Service Disaster for the national crisis it is.