> However the development of consumer/end-user services, such as weather apps for smartphones, seems to me more properly done by the private sector (by which I

> However the development of consumer/end-user services, such as weather apps for smartphones, seems to me more properly done by the private sector (by which I do NOT exclude open-source projects). Why? NOAA is producing all this data, why shouldn't they aim to make it actually useful to people? We probably shouldn't sink a huge amount of money into it if it's going to be provided just fine by the private sector, but I don't see an issue with putting a small amount of money into it if a lot of tax payers get a benefit from it.