The government service is forced to put ads in its free app. WTF?
For example we have some tv channels being run by tax money (not absolutely correct, its a forced pay for everyone not included in taxes but its basically the same) without any ads. Any many free private channels fiddled with ad pauses. The tax ones wanted to put their movies online in a netflix style for free long before netflix but the private ones wonnin court because it would be unfair. Nowadays they are allowed to put them online but only for 30 days after airing in tv, everything else would be unfair to the real low-quality free channels...
There are German comedy channels?
Germany
I think this also means that the DWD can now be more business orientated and perhaps grow their income?
I am not German, but I am trying to see whether this can be to the DWD's advantage.
So I could at least imagine the DWD being attacked if they sell their app for 10 cents or so.
How? Their product is "free", unless you count taxes. They could make it "cheaper" by keeping it free and not using taxes.
Maybe they can similarly spin off the weather app into a company with some kind of status that retains some of its original purpose (which I guess is supplying weather information to German nationals).
It should be completely obvious that the government has an interest in providing weather details to its citizens as a whole for planning and safety. Private citizens and companies are not entitled to markets, especially when it comes to public knowledge and safety!
Didn't the users already purchase the app with their tax dollars?
I hope they embed helpful PSAs as adds.
But then again, I also think this verdict is stupid and makes no sense, next we're going to have to ban free access to current laws because a law book maker firm wants to make some money.
Some needs are worth putting it in a public baseline. And sometimes grey areas work (i.e. a public service fulfilled by a private entity but then checked by a public instance). Some stuff may not need to be public, i.e. kegs of beer. It's great when you want one, but it's not a base public need and not a shared need (unlike infrastructure, health, security, for general survival in places packed with too many people like big cities). But then a commercial entity might see an opportunity to sell things as a public baseline (why have basic weather forecasts when you can add 'bbq weather compatibility forecasts' or 'can I play golf tomorrow' functionality. But now that company has a hard time getting people to pay for it because that extra stuff that you didn't need anyway isn't attractive to anyone who just wants to know if they need to bring an umbrella. So ban the simple stuff and now your complex stuff has a place in the market. It's practically setting yourself up not to win on your own merit but 'removing' any opposition. Or so it seems to us bystanders. I don't actually know why they thought this was a good idea to have a lawsuit about.
It's tricky.
If i build a bridge and it collapse, how I’m making money now? If I have other bridges, people might stop using them if they are known to collapse and kill people.
If we had a private bridge owning/maintaining company, you really think they could afford that one "just collapses"?
Maybe not laws, but for norms and other things that are quasi-law this definitely the case. Also science papers.
There is a lot of public goods some companies are putting behind paywalls and nobody remembers why.
But as long as it's only a few unheard voices complaining about it and no broad law stating 'public money, public data, public access" it's pretty hard to turn it back in to a real public service.
So I guess that the question is: Does society benefit enough from everyone having access to free weather information, outweigh the harm done by businesses risking bancrupcy because their product is now something that should be free? And also that other businesses start to wonder if it's their product that will be "should be free" in the future?
Why isn't the German government making a government funded car to ruin Volkswagen or Mercedes?
They are trade rules: for example, if USA subsidizes Boeing they can be sued and fined in international trade courts, since it hurts, say German companies. (Chinese companies, Airbus etc are routinely accused of having an unfair advantage, due to government subsidies.)
And I'm pretty sure most tax payers will pretty much always choose a free app that gives them basic weather data a few days in advance than a paid app that gives them bells and whistles. So the Government is catering for the vast majority in this case.
Then the market has spoken about where it's priorities lie.
I guess that's just the same question again. Does society benefit enough from everyone having access to free cars, outweigh the harm done by businesses risking bancrupcy because their product is now something that should be free? And also that other businesses start to wonder if it's their product that will be "should be free" in the future?
I wouldn't consider it inconsequent to say "yes" on the first question but "no" on the other...
* Should the government not build roads because it might hurt the profits of toll road companies?
* Should government workers not be able to open source their code or data because it might hurt the profits of software companies?
* Should the government not have an army because it hurts the profits of the private military forces?
You are essentially saying that the government should not be able to provide any value to its people because it might hurt the profits of a private entity.
This argument seems especially strange in this context considering the companies in question are themselves using government provided data for their weather apps, i.e. the government is doing the data collection for those companies. This naturally prevents other companies from profiting from weather data collection as well. I wonder why these companies are not protesting that, and suing the government for providing this data in the first place?
> ... the German Weather Service, based in Offenbach, Hesse, had exceeded the legal mandate for its activities with this offer ...
In other words, if DWD's mandate had included offering this service to the public then it wouldn't have matter that it undermined competition. Even if you think a service like this ought to be subsidized, it isn't a good idea to have rogue government departments "competing" with privately funded alternatives at public expense on their own initiative.
Why not? Does every minor thing that any government funded organisation or employee wants to do need to be approved three-fold by layers and layers of bureaucracy?
That seems absolutely ridiculous. We are talking about something very minor here: making an app that displays regular weather information, where they already had an app that displayed extreme weather information. This is not some immense initiative they are undertaking here. This was likely done by a single person that thought "hey, we are gathering this data, why not display it in our app".
I am working as a scientist on government funding, should I require approval in three-fold by congress before I publish a paper, open-source any code or do any research at all, because a private entity might want to monetise something similar to that research and I might negatively impact their profitability by putting that in the public domain?
You're exaggerating, but yes. Everything which is done through force, including anything funded with taxes or granted special legal status or protection from competition, requires careful oversight to ensure that it isn't using more force than necessary to accomplish the approved goals. Even the seemingly minor things. That's the price for getting your organization funded through the government. Don't like it? Do your work in the private sector where you can manage your budget as you please, since it's your own money.
> ...should I require approval in three-fold by congress before I publish a paper, open-source any code or do any research at all, because a private entity might want to monetise something similar to that research...?
Are these things part of what you're being paid to do as part of your research?
I couldn't care less about how it impacts others' profitability. If you're doing it at your own expense, not taking advantage of special privilege based on your position (such as free access to the data when everyone else must pay), and there is no conflict of interest, then there is no issue. However, if you were taking advantage of government funding or status to carry out tasks that weren't directly related to what you were being paid to do—like developing and maintaining an app backed by data not freely available to the public—then that would be a problem.
And really, does this need to be carried out by the government directly? If the DWD were an ordinary private organization, either for-profit or non-profit, contracted by the government for a set fee through a fair bidding process to provide certain data to the public then the DWD would be free to set their own agenda and develop and maintain this app at their own expense so long as that use of the data was consistent with their contract. The government gets what they paid for, the organization gets to do things their way, competition is fair, and (almost) everyone's happy.
The government is gathering this data. Building your business on top of what another entity is doing (government or company) is always a risk. The exact same risk is taken if you build something on top of the API or data of another company. If you were to build a Twitter client and then Twitter would make their own client available you are shit out of luck. That is the risk you take when you build something on somebody else's infrastructure. I honestly don't see why the government is so special that it should be completely handcuffed and prevented from making meaningful positive changes in society just so the profits of a small amount of people can be protected.
If the government does something to improve society and you can't compete and make a profit, do something else. Would you start a firefighting service and then complain that the government offers this service for free? At that point, why have a government at all?
Arguably, the German weather service should be forced to open source their ad-supported app to “encourage competition”.
i have a similar theory about public TV
The truth is that public TV nowadays contains lots of series and movies (in many cases, American), cooking programmes, tabloid celebrity stuff, etc that they think they must do to stay competitive with private TV. And that's rubbish.