5 ms·

Even though the public broadcasting system started to produce more fluff content on ARD and ZDF in the last decade, they also opened a couple channels like Phoe

by cm3 10y ago

Even though the public broadcasting system started to produce more fluff content on ARD and ZDF in the last decade, they also opened a couple channels like Phoenix and ZDF Info which are aiming to reach the quality level of BBC productions. I don't know if it's just having more money and therefore the quality content growing in proportion. Either way, the original purpose of the publicly funded broadcasting service is very limited and the funds are misused for fluff. If half of the programming is similar to what you find on the US hallmark or bravo networks, it's easy to understand people's reluctance to pay the per-household mandatory tax (legally not a tax, but technically the same thing). I mean, given that people need access chips with a per annum fee for many HD channels today, I could totally get behind a scheme where the publicly funded channels are reduced to what they have to provide by law and thereby requiring just a tiny part of the funds they do now. Then either the mandatory fee is reduced or used for, as you suggested, FOSS code. Anyway, I like your train of thought. We could start by making the national tax tool open source so that there's a proper Linux port, because it's written with Qt already. GPG, due to the safety requirements and reliance in critical situations, would do well with a rewrite in a different language that can still expose a C API. For good integration of the C API (aka no GC) there aren't many languages available to build it in. Maybe ATS2 or Rust. Such a rewrite is something the GPG devs are highly unlikely to do for obvious reasons, but it's something that can be publicly funded as a long-term project.

allendoerfer 10y ago
They are buying the rights to the Olympics and to the World and European Cup every time, getting into bidding wars with private stations. Their argument is, that many people will stick around to watch the news in the half-time so they can fulfill their educational mandate. They could save billions buy just letting RTL or Pro7/Sat1 show sports. UEFA and FIFA restrict the material anyways, so the main difference would be more boulevard half-time news while everybody is getting up to get a new beer. They stopped showing Tour de France a few years ago, when the doping scandals hit its highs and literally nobody cares. Also - and here comes the fucked up part: Showing the events publicly on a stage was forbidden recently, since this requires another set of licensing so you have to pay to visit these stages even though every German household already paid for the license through ARD/ZDF. Fun fact 2: Austrians do not pay and can watch it anyway.
- cm3 10y ago
  And in some countries the tax is a one-time payment included in the price of a tv, radio, etc. That's better in my opinion, and it may force them to produce just what the mandate requires, not daily soaps, game shows, all the while showing ads during the day. If we're consequent, we could easily reduce it to two channels, with an hour per day where the local news are available on an otherwise national broadcast. This is already available on the WDR feeds to some extent. One would be Phoenix++ (plus partially localized Phoenix++ feed) and the other ZDFInfo++. Most of the content is repeated anyway, so two channels with on-demand view on the website is sufficient. Game shows and other forms of entertainment are not about education and keeping the population informed via government funded channels. You might argue it's too late to change it now, but the TV landscape would quickly adjust and formats would move to other networks where they belong and are still broadcast without DRM. The whole 7.6bn/year fund being used for stuff people wouldn't actively select to pay that much for problem reminds me of the misappropriation of the road tax of 8bn/year which trucks pay on a per-km basis. 8bn should be more than enough to build and maintain public roads, but it's apparently used for other needs, all because taxes are not purpose-bound by law. What's the political solution? They're trying to extend highway taxes to private vehicles too in order to build roads. The German government is in dire need of a more logical treasury that's accountable to the electorate outside of 4-year-period-elections for misappropriation or over-/under-spending. If the roads in a city are not maintained for decades, then those paying vehicle tax and other annual fees, must have a right to refuse payment, just like they can do with their landlord. After all, taxes are payments to your national landlord, nothing else.
  - allendoerfer 10y ago
    In general I agree with you, taxes and tax-like systems (church, healthcare, social systems, IHK and the others, broadcast) should be separated as much as possible, but ultimately the system will collapse if we do so. The social systems cannot fund themselves and the outlook is even worse. I think it is not even theoretically possible to cut the subsidies for the pension funds, and even if it was possible, it would choke the young generation because of the increased dues all while Germany already has the second lowest birth rate in the world. The birth rate would fall even lower, thus increasing the costs for the next generation even higher. The bullshit expenses like broadcast and so on can absolutely be reformed, but that's just a few billions here and there. The overwhelming majority of the spending (130 bn € per year, next biggest is the military with just 34 bn €) for the social system cannot decrease, thanks to the demographic it has to be increased every year until the birth rate is stabilized, which as described cannot happen if young people are busy paying for pensions. And btw. the tax revenue from federal roads was 6 bn € last year, while the the ministry of transport spend 8 bn € on it's federal roads. Of course there are also 33bn revenue from the gas tax, which was introduced with the argument that roads need to be paid for, but yeah as described, if we cut the tax, pension funds will die. Revenue from VAT and income taxes are just ~ 80 bn € each, appropriate spending would just collapse the system instantly. Here are the sources as an interactive chart, unfortunately only in German: https://www.bundeshaushalt-info.de/ https://www.bundeshaushalt-info.de/
kriro 10y ago
"""We could start by making the national tax tool open source so that there's a proper Linux port, because it's written with Qt already.""" Absolutely this. Would allow me to get rid of my final Windows VM. I rage about this every now and then...usually around May :P

by cm3 10y ago

allendoerfer 10y ago

They are buying the rights to the Olympics and to the World and European Cup every time, getting into bidding wars with private stations. Their argument is, that many people will stick around to watch the news in the half-time so they can fulfill their educational mandate. They could save billions buy just letting RTL or Pro7/Sat1 show sports. UEFA and FIFA restrict the material anyways, so the main difference would be more boulevard half-time news while everybody is getting up to get a new beer. They stopped showing Tour de France a few years ago, when the doping scandals hit its highs and literally nobody cares. Also - and here comes the fucked up part: Showing the events publicly on a stage was forbidden recently, since this requires another set of licensing so you have to pay to visit these stages even though every German household already paid for the license through ARD/ZDF. Fun fact 2: Austrians do not pay and can watch it anyway.

cm3 10y ago
And in some countries the tax is a one-time payment included in the price of a tv, radio, etc. That's better in my opinion, and it may force them to produce just what the mandate requires, not daily soaps, game shows, all the while showing ads during the day. If we're consequent, we could easily reduce it to two channels, with an hour per day where the local news are available on an otherwise national broadcast. This is already available on the WDR feeds to some extent. One would be Phoenix++ (plus partially localized Phoenix++ feed) and the other ZDFInfo++. Most of the content is repeated anyway, so two channels with on-demand view on the website is sufficient. Game shows and other forms of entertainment are not about education and keeping the population informed via government funded channels. You might argue it's too late to change it now, but the TV landscape would quickly adjust and formats would move to other networks where they belong and are still broadcast without DRM. The whole 7.6bn/year fund being used for stuff people wouldn't actively select to pay that much for problem reminds me of the misappropriation of the road tax of 8bn/year which trucks pay on a per-km basis. 8bn should be more than enough to build and maintain public roads, but it's apparently used for other needs, all because taxes are not purpose-bound by law. What's the political solution? They're trying to extend highway taxes to private vehicles too in order to build roads. The German government is in dire need of a more logical treasury that's accountable to the electorate outside of 4-year-period-elections for misappropriation or over-/under-spending. If the roads in a city are not maintained for decades, then those paying vehicle tax and other annual fees, must have a right to refuse payment, just like they can do with their landlord. After all, taxes are payments to your national landlord, nothing else.
- allendoerfer 10y ago
  In general I agree with you, taxes and tax-like systems (church, healthcare, social systems, IHK and the others, broadcast) should be separated as much as possible, but ultimately the system will collapse if we do so. The social systems cannot fund themselves and the outlook is even worse. I think it is not even theoretically possible to cut the subsidies for the pension funds, and even if it was possible, it would choke the young generation because of the increased dues all while Germany already has the second lowest birth rate in the world. The birth rate would fall even lower, thus increasing the costs for the next generation even higher. The bullshit expenses like broadcast and so on can absolutely be reformed, but that's just a few billions here and there. The overwhelming majority of the spending (130 bn € per year, next biggest is the military with just 34 bn €) for the social system cannot decrease, thanks to the demographic it has to be increased every year until the birth rate is stabilized, which as described cannot happen if young people are busy paying for pensions. And btw. the tax revenue from federal roads was 6 bn € last year, while the the ministry of transport spend 8 bn € on it's federal roads. Of course there are also 33bn revenue from the gas tax, which was introduced with the argument that roads need to be paid for, but yeah as described, if we cut the tax, pension funds will die. Revenue from VAT and income taxes are just ~ 80 bn € each, appropriate spending would just collapse the system instantly. Here are the sources as an interactive chart, unfortunately only in German: https://www.bundeshaushalt-info.de/ https://www.bundeshaushalt-info.de/

kriro 10y ago

"""We could start by making the national tax tool open source so that there's a proper Linux port, because it's written with Qt already.""" Absolutely this. Would allow me to get rid of my final Windows VM. I rage about this every now and then...usually around May :P