4 ms·

There aren't many other products with that kind of fee-structure. (In the UK) if Bob drives a car and doesn't pay for insurance he will get fined or go to pris

by dotBen 15y ago

There aren't many other products with that kind of fee-structure. (In the UK) if Bob drives a car and doesn't pay for insurance he will get fined or go to prison. Yet Ann can ride her bike, crash into a pedestrian cross the street while uninsured. There's an example of another "special fee" with its own legislation which also has loopholes/inconsistances. There are many others.

Symmetry 15y ago
But I can choose which insurance company gets my money. If I start the SBC and try to get money from people the same way the BBC does, or even that people be allowed to give me money instead of the BBC, I won't have any success.
DanBC 15y ago
There is a free market of competing insurance companies who will take Bob's money. People who have a tv "installed or used" must buy a licence, and can only buy it from one company, whether they use that company's product or not. Indeed, they need to pay the fee even if they intend to only ever use the product of the BBC's competitors. Non-payment of car insurance is handled by the police. Non-payment of tv licence is handled by a private company. The TVL database is the largest civilian database in the UK, with details of 30million addresses. Cost of enforcement has been used as a reason to scrap the licence fee, by a previous BBC director general (Greg Dyke.) While it's possible to kill people and cause a lot of damage on a push-bike it is considerably harder to do so than whilst driving a car. And the analogy breaks down further - I can listen to BBC radio all day; I can use the BBC website all day; I can even watch BBC tv programmes on the BBC video on demand service BBC iPlayer (so long as they are time-shifted and not live-streaming) without having to buy a licence. But as soon as I want to watch, for example, Sky, I need to pay the licence to BBC and pay a subscription to Sky. For your analogy: As soon as Ann passes her driving test and buys a Ford she needs to pay money to Chrysler to allow her to drive. (But all of my analogies suck!)

by dotBen 15y ago

Symmetry 15y ago

But I can choose which insurance company gets my money. If I start the SBC and try to get money from people the same way the BBC does, or even that people be allowed to give me money instead of the BBC, I won't have any success.

DanBC 15y ago

There is a free market of competing insurance companies who will take Bob's money. People who have a tv "installed or used" must buy a licence, and can only buy it from one company, whether they use that company's product or not. Indeed, they need to pay the fee even if they intend to only ever use the product of the BBC's competitors. Non-payment of car insurance is handled by the police. Non-payment of tv licence is handled by a private company. The TVL database is the largest civilian database in the UK, with details of 30million addresses. Cost of enforcement has been used as a reason to scrap the licence fee, by a previous BBC director general (Greg Dyke.) While it's possible to kill people and cause a lot of damage on a push-bike it is considerably harder to do so than whilst driving a car. And the analogy breaks down further - I can listen to BBC radio all day; I can use the BBC website all day; I can even watch BBC tv programmes on the BBC video on demand service BBC iPlayer (so long as they are time-shifted and not live-streaming) without having to buy a licence. But as soon as I want to watch, for example, Sky, I need to pay the licence to BBC and pay a subscription to Sky. For your analogy: As soon as Ann passes her driving test and buys a Ford she needs to pay money to Chrysler to allow her to drive. (But all of my analogies suck!)