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> The German Weather Service (DWD) will no longer be allowed to provide general weather forecasts in a free mobile phone app. … [DWD] will only be permitted to
by SimeVidas 7y ago
> The German Weather Service (DWD) will no longer be allowed to provide general weather forecasts in a free mobile phone app. … [DWD] will only be permitted to offer extreme weather warnings for free and … a DWD app offering general weather forecasts must contain advertisements or be purchased by users.
The government service is forced to put ads in its free app. WTF?
- arduinomancer 7y agoTruly bizzare
- s1artibartfast 7y ago>or be purchased by users Didn't the users already purchase the app with their tax dollars? I hope they embed helpful PSAs as adds.
- oneplane 7y agoI think the difference is the guaranteed budgets vs. commercial budget that needs to be proven (to a bank for a loan) or earned. But then again, I also think this verdict is stupid and makes no sense, next we're going to have to ban free access to current laws because a law book maker firm wants to make some money.
- s1artibartfast 7y agoAgreed, the list is endless. Public buses compete with taxis and public news competes with MSM
- oneplane 7y agoThe problem with most of the public vs. private stuff is that 'the public' often needs something (i.e. a bridge that doesn't collapse) yet a commercial entity with the goal of maximising profit will probably have no problem with a collapsing bridge as long as it's cheaper than maintaining it. Some needs are worth putting it in a public baseline. And sometimes grey areas work (i.e. a public service fulfilled by a private entity but then checked by a public instance). Some stuff may not need to be public, i.e. kegs of beer. It's great when you want one, but it's not a base public need and not a shared need (unlike infrastructure, health, security, for general survival in places packed with too many people like big cities). But then a commercial entity might see an opportunity to sell things as a public baseline (why have basic weather forecasts when you can add 'bbq weather compatibility forecasts' or 'can I play golf tomorrow' functionality. But now that company has a hard time getting people to pay for it because that extra stuff that you didn't need anyway isn't attractive to anyone who just wants to know if they need to bring an umbrella. So ban the simple stuff and now your complex stuff has a place in the market. It's practically setting yourself up not to win on your own merit but 'removing' any opposition. Or so it seems to us bystanders. I don't actually know why they thought this was a good idea to have a lawsuit about. It's tricky.
- debian3 7y agoYeah, that’s why airline have plane crashing all the time, it’s cheaper than maintaining them. /s
- turbinerneiter 7y agoWe literally had planes crash because Boeing was refusing to put the money down to do a proper development.
- debian3 7y agoYes, and look at their shares price.
- admax88q 7y agoA falling share price doesn't un-crash the planes.
- debian3 7y agoNo but it gives a strong incentive to behave differently. If it doesn’t, an other player take it’s place.
- llampx 7y agoThe stock did not move as much during the time of the Max news as it did recently due to the Coronavirus situation.
- mc32 7y agoThat’s way too simplistic. Antonovs when they were ‘public’ Also had problems. Being public doesn’t immunize them against cost-benefit decisions.
- s1artibartfast 7y agoThat doesn’t necessarily mean a plane designed entirely be civil servants would be better.
- turbinerneiter 7y agoUm, isn't this already the case? Maybe not laws, but for norms and other things that are quasi-law this definitely the case. Also science papers. There is a lot of public goods some companies are putting behind paywalls and nobody remembers why.
- Flockster 7y agoFunny that you mention it. German laws are published via the 'Bundesanzeiger Verlag' which is a fully privatized publisher owned by the DuMont Group. This lead to the fact, that you couldn't search, copy or print laws online for free. In reaction to this the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany then opened up a guerilla portal in late 2018 which allowed this. Because of this, it is planed for 2022, that all german laws will be published online and the contract with DuMont comes to an end.
- hobofan 7y agoAlmost as bad is the monopoly of "Bundesanzeiger" in regards to the mandatory publishing of the annual balance sheets of companies beyond a certain size. Everyone has to publish there, and you only get access to an API (which AFAIK still gives you fairly unstructured data) if you pay a hefty sum. This makes any open/reproducable research into industry trends really difficult.
- oneplane 7y agoYeah, I have seen similar thins in a lot of modern and (modern-ish) countries where due to historical reasoning or organic growth some commercial business gets hold of a piece of public functionality that really should not be encapsulated that way. But as long as it's only a few unheard voices complaining about it and no broad law stating 'public money, public data, public access" it's pretty hard to turn it back in to a real public service.
- jsjddbbwj 7y agoDoesn't seem that odd. The public television channels of some countries also contain ads, as regulated by their specific laws.
- madeofpalk 7y agoThat also seems odd
- jsjddbbwj 7y agoIt's a way of funding them as good as any other. Personally I prefer it: I don't watch television so from my point of view the budget of the public TV channels should be as small as possible.
- PostOnce 7y agoi don't go to the library often because i buy books, but i don't think the library should be ad funded, I'm happy to pay for it in case someone else needs it, their knowledge will benefit me later anyway i have a similar theory about public TV
- jsjddbbwj 7y agoThat seems like a dishonest comparison. While it's true public television has some divulgation programmes, they are usually pushed to the secondary channels and they aren't watched by many people. If public television consisted only of those programmes, its budget would be much, much lower, and I would be happy to pay for it. The truth is that public TV nowadays contains lots of series and movies (in many cases, American), cooking programmes, tabloid celebrity stuff, etc that they think they must do to stay competitive with private TV. And that's rubbish.
- luckylion 7y agoTV is about as far away from beneficial to an individual or society as you can get without straight up poisoning or stabbing people. The less it is consumed, the better. You're not helping anyone or society by encouraging others to watch it.
- tpetry 7y agoWe‘ve got a problem in germany with anything spent for by tax money. If something is done by tax money and some private company is doing the same with their own money the will go to court because the other one has an unfair advantage. For example we have some tv channels being run by tax money (not absolutely correct, its a forced pay for everyone not included in taxes but its basically the same) without any ads. Any many free private channels fiddled with ad pauses. The tax ones wanted to put their movies online in a netflix style for free long before netflix but the private ones wonnin court because it would be unfair. Nowadays they are allowed to put them online but only for 30 days after airing in tv, everything else would be unfair to the real low-quality free channels...
- inferiorhuman 7y agowould be unfair to the real low-quality free channels... There are German comedy channels?
- 7177Y 7y agoHey! There is nothing funny about German humour!
- HenryBemis 7y agoGerman Humour??????? It's like saying Australian Mozzarella... it simply doesn't exist (or legally it shouldn't!) Let's keep the humour where it belongs (away from Central Europe)(sad thing is that one-by-one the Monty Pythons are leaving us)
- chrisbennet 7y agoWhere would we be without humor? Germany
- mikorym 7y agoIf that is the argument, then I think the priority now for the DWD is to offer a cheaper and better product. I think this also means that the DWD can now be more business orientated and perhaps grow their income? I am not German, but I am trying to see whether this can be to the DWD's advantage.
- onetimemanytime 7y agoIt's not as clear cut as it seems: I have spent untold millions on "DE Weather App" and this one funded by taxpayers drives out of business. How is that fair?
- pelliphant 7y agoIt's not fair, that is true. So I guess that the question is: Does society benefit enough from everyone having access to free weather information, outweigh the harm done by businesses risking bancrupcy because their product is now something that should be free? And also that other businesses start to wonder if it's their product that will be "should be free" in the future?
- onetimemanytime 7y agowhat if the "free" version is not as good, yet most people will use it because it's "free"? Meaning very few will pay for the best version. All will close shop and bureaucrats will collect their salaries while making so-so free weather apps, backed by tax dollars. Is this outcome better? I use several websites for weather and I know which one is more accurate, they differ. Why isn't the German government making a government funded car to ruin Volkswagen or Mercedes?
- Zenbit_UX 7y agoIt's not about accuracy, weather data us provided by the government in most countries, the third parties are using the same data. You could make a case for better UI or UX but not really data...
- onetimemanytime 7y agoEvery government has to have e weather service since it's vital to agro, fishing, daily life etc. But they can release the API or whatever that doesn't drive out of business other weather companies. They are trade rules: for example, if USA subsidizes Boeing they can be sued and fined in international trade courts, since it hurts, say German companies. (Chinese companies, Airbus etc are routinely accused of having an unfair advantage, due to government subsidies.)
- noisy_boy 7y agoSure. Let other government departments advertise on the app. Surely the platform has the right to choose what kind of ads are displayed on it.
- conjectures 7y agoSomething like this is the obvious real-world solution. Combined with a 'nuanced' understanding of frequency, placement and eligibibility.