At that time there was also an effort to privatize aviation data, the Aeronav products that the FAA produces. It was a huge clusterfuck but in the end calmed do

At that time there was also an effort to privatize aviation data, the Aeronav products that the FAA produces. It was a huge clusterfuck but in the end calmed down. In both cases the result would be significantly worse applications for consumers. There's a lot of fantastic weather apps built on free NWS and NOAA data, things like Dark Sky, that would be impossible if the data were not freely available. Same for aviation with apps like Foreflight.