Google is discontinuing their free weather API | Hacker News Reader

Google is discontinuing their free weather API

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57 pointsSephr17 comments

For the US, the National Weather Service has an API: https://www.weather.gov/documentation/services-web-api

Since it’s a government service, it’s entirely free and will likely stay that way. I have noticed occasional data quality issues (e.g. missing items), and I recommend a catching/proxy layer if you are planning heavy usage.

It’s astounding that we live in a time when this needs to be questioned, but with Trump’s recent NOAA appointment, there is actually some risk regarding what public feeds will continue to operate,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/...

Barry Myers enriched himself by repackaging government-provided weather feeds and has long advocated that only private firms should be able to distribute forecasts based on those feeds to the public.

His argument is that it presents unfair competition if people can consume the forecasts from a government entity that has public funds and military support to deploy sensor networks, satellites, etc.

Ironically, he also holds the position that for any type of forecast, like hurricanes or severe weather, for which there could feasibly be legal culpability if an incorrect forecast leads to damage or loss of life, the government should be responsible for those warning systems and private weather corporations should not be required to provide data for these types of events.

It’s not ironic if one understands that his larger motivation is to “privatize the profits and socialize the costs” as opposed to a coherent worldview about the role of government in providing services.

UK has one as well.

It's great

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/datapoint

Killing Google Reader in 2013 was what got this death march of Google EOL'd projects noticed, IMO. You now can't trust them for product longevity outside the core search and email.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products#Discon...

And they're even taking away Inbox, and forcing everyone back to Gmail.

This is interesting when viewed in combination with the new pricing tiers for maps api.

I believe that they are opening the door to companies such as mapbox, carto and others, which is a good thing.

The question is, why are they doing it?

1) do they want to bring in other competitors to stave off some sort of anti-trust?

2) do they want the tiny bit of revenue (compared to their main revenue streams) to help cover the costs?

3) is there something with the structure of being an alphabet company which would require these things be paid for?

According to recent discussion, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19004899 Google (and more importantly, Google's investors) are waking up the fact that they're a mature company in a mature market, and they are trying to cut costs across the organization.

You would think they would let existing developers continue to use the free tier under the old API for good PR but it seems they're intentionally pushing devs away from the platform.

"Hey, you need to rewrite your app to use our new API and pay us for the privilege of doing so."

‘Hey you need to rewrite your app and you can choose either our new paid API or that of someone else’

It’s actually pretty nice of them to remove the lock-in effect!

it's not. it's most likely that android apps are the ones using the google apis(since it used to be logical to goto google first for your api needs). even if these apps are taken off the playstore,they probably exist on someone's phone. cutting off api access means these apps stop working - resulting in an even more garbage experience on android. Finding an app you LIKE for everyday tasks remains as irritating as ever across playstores and these kinda changes usually means your favorite abandoned app stops working.

i guess google PM's probably think the trickle down effect is negligible since fuschia is probably going to be their next iteration of mobile OS

Anyone who's developed things using Google's APIs in the past decade has learned to expect them to shut down at some point. That's not a reason to avoid them entirely, but it is a reason to architect your app to make it easier to change.

Another shout out to https://darksky.net - using it currently for personal weather forecasting. Very simple API and 1000 free QPD seems like a decent amount.

Works well for the US, but I've heard it's not quite as accurate for Europe and other parts of the world.

Either a Google service is free and advertising supported or you need to pay for it and it's free of advertising and analytics.

People will still complain.

Google needs to monetize their next thing, Maps.

Then they'll fill it with ads so if you search for McDonalds on Maps, they'll be forced to buy ads for their own name or Burger King will.

They have already done this with Waze. When you stop at a light it will show ads for stores and restaurants nearby.

Maps is already heavily monetized. On the developer side, it's monetized via API licensing and pay-per-request geocoding. [0] Any website with a google maps widget and meaningful traffic is paying google to use the maps and/or lookup addresses in a typeahead box. On the marketing side, it's monetized via advertisements, namely sponsored map icons, sponsored links, and (I think) "billboarding". When you scroll in/out in maps and see icons belonging to seemingly seemingly arbitrary businesses, they are likely paying for that exposure. [1]

[0] https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/pricing/

[1] https://www.quora.com/How-does-Google-monetize-Google-Maps

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