3 ms·

It's hardly unusual for entities that receive government money to also charge for products/services produced using that money. Three examples I can think of jus

It's hardly unusual for entities that receive government money to also charge for products/services produced using that money. Three examples I can think of just off the top of my head include 1) the health service in places like France where there are subsidised usage fees, 2) farmers in the EU who get large subsidies from the CAP or the equivalent in the USA, 3) application fees in patent offices. It is definitely super annoying that this data is not free, but the reality is that it does cost a bit of money to gather and aggregate. Furthermore, though I frequently take the train, I do consider it unfair that general taxation revenues are used to fund the train services -- especially considering that if you look at the stats they are principally used by the wealthy. Charging for data goes some way to shifting the cost burden of rail back onto the rail travellers themselves, as the person ultimately paying for this data is the traveller that uses the train time app/website.

alimbada 15y ago
"It is definitely super annoying that this data is not free, but the reality is that it does cost a bit of money to gather and aggregate." Gathering and aggregating I'm not sure about, but I think the bigger cost is probably the frequency and number of connections to the feeds, which doesn't need to be as costly as it is. Fourth paragraph is most relevant: http://www.lyonanderson.com/post/2670466085/youre-asking-for-the-wrong-thing-when-pull-should-be http://www.lyonanderson.com/post/2670466085/youre-asking-for...
singular 15y ago
I'm not contesting that entities which receive government money shouldn't charge also if the economics implies it, rather focusing on the fact that they take a vast amount of taxpayer money which then helps fund greedy companies who deliver giant bags of fail and on top of it all charge for information which, let's face it, is something of a paltry cost to provide, really, certainly as a proportion of the funding they receive. We might not all use the services, but we are all certainly entitled to investigate and examine how our money is being spent - standing in the way of providing data for what appear to be money-grabbing reasons certainly does not help redistribute the cost to rail users I don't think, and actively gets in the way of highlighting less effective rail operators.

alimbada 15y ago

"It is definitely super annoying that this data is not free, but the reality is that it does cost a bit of money to gather and aggregate." Gathering and aggregating I'm not sure about, but I think the bigger cost is probably the frequency and number of connections to the feeds, which doesn't need to be as costly as it is. Fourth paragraph is most relevant: http://www.lyonanderson.com/post/2670466085/youre-asking-for-the-wrong-thing-when-pull-should-be http://www.lyonanderson.com/post/2670466085/youre-asking-for...

singular 15y ago

I'm not contesting that entities which receive government money shouldn't charge also if the economics implies it, rather focusing on the fact that they take a vast amount of taxpayer money which then helps fund greedy companies who deliver giant bags of fail and on top of it all charge for information which, let's face it, is something of a paltry cost to provide, really, certainly as a proportion of the funding they receive. We might not all use the services, but we are all certainly entitled to investigate and examine how our money is being spent - standing in the way of providing data for what appear to be money-grabbing reasons certainly does not help redistribute the cost to rail users I don't think, and actively gets in the way of highlighting less effective rail operators.