[door5]

> The only way to have free content is if the user is the product being sold.

Or we could provide robust public funding, like the BBC

> It's what we must accept if we don't want the government to provide the news.

Public funding of media does not make it "government news". In fact, it's subject to far more scrutiny than private media. You would rather Jeff Bezos and friends control the news rather than a transparent & highly regulated independent publicly funded organization?

[chopin]

Public funding makes it "government news" in Germany. And very expensive at that.

[sgift]

Both of these sentences are factually wrong. There is no government news in Germany. And the Öffentlich-rechtlich (which program is, again, not controlled by the government) are not really expensive (The price is 17,50 for everything together: TV programs, radio programs, internet presence).

[chopin]

It is controlled by CDU and SPD who together form the government. Secondly afaik it is one of the best funded public broadcast worldwide.

[anoncake]

Please stop spreading misinformation. The Federal Constitutional Court decided in 2014 that no more than a third of the members of each Rundfunkrat can be chosen by the state or by parties. Also, not all party representatives are representatives of a governing party. The ZDF Fernsehrat has representatives of each party present in the Bundestag. Two thirds belong to other groups such as churches and unions. For the state-level Rundfunkrats, the federal government is obviously irrelevant.

[chopin]

Name one Intendant (head of broadcaster) who is not member of a ruling party.

[anoncake]

I don't take orders from you. But there are a few.

[door5]

There is not one single way to publicly fund media. Hell you could just leave the whole system as is as provide no strings attached grants or tax credits to all publishers. The point is, there is no technical solution to this, we need policy change.