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Comment by briandear | Hacker News Reader

They are a very big deal for aviation. My plane uses XM in-cockpit weather products.

But ADS-B is catching up and quickly. I understand there are a few additional layers in SXM and the resolution is better when looking at 200+NM. I find SXM weather to be kind of extortion because they use publicly available data and sell it just for packaging it nice.

ADS-B isn't a weather product, is it? It tells you where other planes are, it does not tell you about cloud layers, winds-aloft, or other meteorological data. Unless I'm incredibly mistaken.

SXM carries this (along with a ton of other products) in their stream, alongside the audio channels that most people know. Their agricultural products, aviation products, stock-market feed, fuel-price data, and more, are valuable to various markets who buy specialized displays with the receivers integrated into them.

You are mistaken https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/programs/adsb/pilot/#fisb

How do you feel about all local news channels, all radio stations, and all weather websites using freely available NOAA data as part of their income-producing content? (Or maybe there is some special thing you know of where those outlets have to pay and SXM gets it for free?)

because they use publicly available data and sell it just for packaging it nice.

Aren't you missing the part where they're sending it to you 10,000 feet in the air via a satellite constellation? That's a little more than "packaging". You're free to access the public data by any other means you choose.

I used to have XM weather. The data is generally better, and it works on the ground, but I couldn’t justify the $30/mo for the kind of flying I do. ADS-B weather is “good enough”.

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