> The German Weather Service (DWD) will no longer be allowed to provide general weather forecasts in a free mobile phone app. … [DWD] will only be permitted to offer extreme weather warnings for free and … a DWD app offering general weather forecasts must contain advertisements or be purchased by users.
The government service is forced to put ads in its free app. WTF?
We‘ve got a problem in germany with anything spent for by tax money. If something is done by tax money and some private company is doing the same with their own money the will go to court because the other one has an unfair advantage.
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...
Lets say that the government and DWD developed equivalent apps but DWD did it at half the cost. If the government app has to charge users based on its costs, then it will be twice as expensive, and lose out to the more efficient private company. But if they are just allowed to give it out to consumers for free (which a private company can't do) then it will dominate the market even though it is not the best use of resources. I assume that is the rationale for this law.
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's shit like this that gets people to go from "Capitalism needs tweaks" to "It is rotten to the core".
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!
I think the difference is the guaranteed budgets vs. commercial budget that needs to be proven (to a bank for a loan) or earned.
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.
Funny that you mention it. German laws are published via the 'Bundesanzeiger Verlag' which is a fully privatized publisher owned by the DuMont Group.
This lead to the fact, that you couldn't search, copy or print laws online for free. In reaction to this the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany then opened up a guerilla portal in late 2018 which allowed this.
Because of this, it is planed for 2022, that all german laws will be published online and the contract with DuMont comes to an end.
Almost as bad is the monopoly of "Bundesanzeiger" in regards to the mandatory publishing of the annual balance sheets of companies beyond a certain size. Everyone has to publish there, and you only get access to an API (which AFAIK still gives you fairly unstructured data) if you pay a hefty sum. This makes any open/reproducable research into industry trends really difficult.
Yeah, I have seen similar thins in a lot of modern and (modern-ish) countries where due to historical reasoning or organic growth some commercial business gets hold of a piece of public functionality that really should not be encapsulated that way.
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.
The problem with most of the public vs. private stuff is that 'the public' often needs something (i.e. a bridge that doesn't collapse) yet a commercial entity with the goal of maximising profit will probably have no problem with a collapsing bridge as long as it's cheaper than maintaining it.
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.
The Deutsche Bahn in Germany is pretty much doing that. They pay for maintenance, the Government pays for repair. So they save money on maintenance and let the Government pay for the repairs.
And it shows, in case anybody was wondering. The percentage of trains that break down in the middle of the field, that have to detach a few carriages in some random train station so they can keep going with the rest of the train, or that barely make it to the destination but then are stuck there unable to move is truly astounding.
Planes have been falling out of the sky due to commercial reasoning. And most maintenance is done the way it is because it had to be put in to law to force a businesses to do it.
That is correct, you get some sort of mix or grey area. I think there was an interview with some of the engineers with an airplane manufacturer that described the changes after a merger where both companies were general commercial companies with profit in mind (and shareholders etc) but one had a company culture of doing it right and the other wanted to lower that down to 'right enough' hoping to make a bit more money that they didn't actually need on top of the billions of profit. But that's what minmaxing with do...
There is more to it. Usually people don’t like to take plane from airline if they have a lot of accident.
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.
It's not as clear cut as it seems: I have spent untold millions on "DE Weather App" and this one funded by taxpayers drives out of business. How is that fair?
This argument can be made against anything the government does.
* 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?
I think the real reason behind the ruling is here:
> ... 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.
> 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?
> 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?
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.
This sounds like a horrible way of running a society. This is like the government intentionally keeping the tax code complicated and making filing taxes difficult so companies can exist that then fix that problem. You are forcing the government to be immensely inefficient, for no other reason than that a small number of people can profit from those inefficiencies at the expense of improving society as a whole.
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?
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?
what if the "free" version is not as good, yet most people will use it because it's "free"? Meaning very few will pay for the best version. All will close shop and bureaucrats will collect their salaries while making so-so free weather apps, backed by tax dollars. Is this outcome better? I use several websites for weather and I know which one is more accurate, they differ.
Why isn't the German government making a government funded car to ruin Volkswagen or Mercedes?
It's not about accuracy, weather data us provided by the government in most countries, the third parties are using the same data. You could make a case for better UI or UX but not really data...
Every government has to have e weather service since it's vital to agro, fishing, daily life etc. But they can release the API or whatever that doesn't drive out of business other weather companies.
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.)
But the cases you mention are about the Government helping a private entity make a profit. In the weather app's case it's the Government (broadly speaking) giving tax payers something "for free". This last case is far more nuanced than your comparison makes it out to be.
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.
>Why isn't the German government making a government funded car to ruin Volkswagen or Mercedes?
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...
I mean, if you spent _millions_ developing a weather app, you're just bad at business and doomed to fail regardless of whether there is a government funded competitor or not.
Indeed. Although I always think that any software produced by the government should be Free Software. It's stupid for taxpayer funded software to not be open and extensible by citizens.
Not to avoid unfair competition, though. That's just for funding because they're not entirely tax-funded. In this case, the DWD is already tax funded and wants to provide its tax-funded information to the people who paid for it.
It's a way of funding them as good as any other. Personally I prefer it: I don't watch television so from my point of view the budget of the public TV channels should be as small as possible.
i don't go to the library often because i buy books, but i don't think the library should be ad funded, I'm happy to pay for it in case someone else needs it, their knowledge will benefit me later anyway
That seems like a dishonest comparison. While it's true public television has some divulgation programmes, they are usually pushed to the secondary channels and they aren't watched by many people. If public television consisted only of those programmes, its budget would be much, much lower, and I would be happy to pay for it.
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.
TV is about as far away from beneficial to an individual or society as you can get without straight up poisoning or stabbing people. The less it is consumed, the better. You're not helping anyone or society by encouraging others to watch it.
No. There are anti-competitive laws that prevent the federal institutions to prop up a tax-funded competition to commercial products, unless specifically allowed/mandated by law.
I'm not saying it's the case here, but why not? The law could say they are forced to run X minutes of ads per hour, or that X% of their funding must come from ads.
The government service is forced to put ads in its free app. WTF?