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Another one bites the dust. I've used weather underground api, yahoo weather api, dark sky api, and all of them have gone from free to paid (or just not public
by JoshGlazebrook 1y ago
Another one bites the dust. I've used weather underground api, yahoo weather api, dark sky api, and all of them have gone from free to paid (or just not public anymore) over the years. Currently using pirate weather - https://pirateweather.net/en/latest/ https://pirateweather.net/en/latest/
- scarface_74 1y agoDark Sky was never free for unlimited use. It’s now Apple’s WeatherKit. The first 500K calls a month is free with a $99 a year Apple Developer account and there is a standard REST API for none Apple OS’s.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoI feel its not nearly as useful as the old darksky api. The secret sauce of that software was that it combined typical weather data with local reports. Afaik there is no way to submit a weather report on the apple weather app. They bought it for the name and to kill a competing option essentially vs attempting to use what made that app actually compelling compared to other weather apps.
- OptionOfT 1y agoThere actually is. At the bottom - report an issue.
- svarrall 1y agoIf you scroll down on to the bottom of Apple Weather it has a “Report an Issue” button which allows you to report current weather conditions at your location. I have no idea what happens to that data and if it contributes to the report in any way.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoWow I would have assumed that was to report a bug not a weather call. Darksky had a great ui for quickly reporting the weather and encouraged it as the primary feature of the app.
- margalabargala 1y ago> The first 500K calls a month is free with a $99 a year[...] They may be included with your $99/year subscription, but to call them "free" is like saying that the groceries I'm holding are free because I just gave the cashier money.
- hoosier2gator 1y agoI would say it's more like saying that driving on the highway is free because you pay taxes. I doubt anyone is buying a developer account specifically for weather API calls.
- margalabargala 1y agoLots of people drive on highways who pay no highway taxes, foreign tourists for example. It's free like riding the monorail at Disney World is free; included in the cost of your entry ticket, and utterly inaccessible to anyone who has not paid.
- bigiain 1y agoLots of people get the weather forecasts from tv or radio for free. Weather forecasts aren't "utterly inaccessible" the way the Disney monorail is.
- margalabargala 1y agoNot from the Dark Sky API they don't. We're not talking about "weather forecasts", we're talking about a specific set of weather forecasts accessed in a particular way.
- op00to 1y ago> Lots of people drive on highways who pay no highway taxes, foreign tourists for example. Highways are mostly funded through gas taxes, and registration fees for EVs. Even foreign tourists buy gasoline, or drive an EV that paid its registration fee. Also, the Disney World monorail is outside the ticket gates. You can ride it without a ticket.
- ge96 1y agoIs there any way people would be incentivized to setup a little weather station/contribute to data and get paid. Wonder if there's a model where people could make money/not game the system too. It would have to be standardized/verified to be accurate somehow.
- WillAdams 1y agoIsn't that Weather Underground's schtick?
- bigiain 1y agoIt kinda was, but they did this same rugpull and closed their free api way back before covid. They do still claim: "250,000+ Weather Stations Weather Underground is a global community of people connecting data from environmental sensors like weather stations and air quality monitors " I think it's a bit like FlightRadar24 - if you feed them your weather station (or ADBS receiver) data you get some level of free access but with non commercial use restrictions.
- WillAdams 1y agoIt's a reasonable tradeoff --- if I had a larger lot, and if there weren't already a bunch of stations in my neighborhood I'd gladly set one up.
- wmeredith 1y ago> Wonder if there's a model where people could make money/not game the system too. We're up against the most basic of human nature here.
- Aurornis 1y agoBlockchain people have been trying variations of this for a decade. Any time you create a system that pays people for data, it will be exploited to the extreme. I don’t think you need to incentivize people to provide weather data. Just make it easy to set up a station and get a lot of people interested. There are already hobby stations out there and networks for them.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoAren’t all these services just abrogating some national weather service data? Is that api exposed to the public?
- jimmaswell 1y agoYes, and it's a free public service as I would expect. https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api
- SkyeCA 1y agoI never considered government weather departments would provide APIs for their data, but after seeing your comment I went to see if Environment Canada provided one. I am very impressed by how how much data they provide free of charge. https://api.weather.gc.ca/ https://api.weather.gc.ca/
- phillipseamore 1y agoThey do even better: https://eccc-msc.github.io/open-data/readme_en/ https://eccc-msc.github.io/open-data/readme_en/
- perfectviking 1y agoFor now. A component of Project 2025 is to remove the public access.
- CyberDildonics 1y agoMichael Lewis' book the fifth risk talks explicitly how someone with a paid weather app was put in charge of the commerce department (by trump) so he could try to hide public weather data but use it in his app then charge for it.
- squigz 1y agoIt's almost as if APIs cost money to run?!