[simonw]

Is this really an expensive problem to solve?

Give Google a continuous feed of the weather data which they cache locally. I can't imagine that being a particularly expensive thing to operate - no need to reply to an API call from Google every time someone searches for "weather".

[groundzeros2015]

That sounds like the arrangement you said we have. The government provides data to private companies who then mass distribute it in various forms because those costs and needs vary.

[crote]

The problem is that those very same private companies are trying really hard to ban the government from providing the same data for free to the general public, because it would be "unfair competition".

They get it for free from the government. They offer it as a paid service to the general public. Then they try to ban the government from giving it away for free to any potential competition.

[counters]

> The problem is that those very same private companies are trying really hard to ban the government from providing the same data for free to the general public, because it would be "unfair competition".

In general, they aren't.

The sole example I can think of that even skirts with this was specifically an attempt by AccuWeather in the 2000's, coordinating with then-Senator Rick Santorum's office. And that was universally decried by the entire weather enterprise.

[vel0city]

Project 2025 called for downsizing the weather service and have them focus on just data gathering and it should "fully commercialize its forecasting operations".

https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeade...

[counters]

And that literally isn't happening.

[vel0city]

A lot of the recommendations for NOAA cuts in Project 2025 have been happening, so it's probably more of a "hasn't happened yet" kind of thing.

There's little reason to believe that isn't still the goal.

[groundzeros2015]

This is a conspiracy theory.

[vel0city]

How so?

They've already implemented over half of the policies suggested in it.

https://www.project2025.observer/en

As mentioned they've already implemented many of the recommendations related to NOAA in the document. If anything they've gone even further in many of the cuts as they've cut the budgets so much a lot of balloon launches haven't happened vastly reducing the ground truth needed to keep models and forecasts accurate.

Instead, they've moved such things to... drumroll...private corporations.

https://www.wired.com/story/private-companies-step-up-to-gat...

Tell me again how this is conspiracy theory?

[groundzeros2015]

I agree that anti-competitive coercion of access is bad.