> I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China.
After dealing with many private sector services, I think a lot of things should be government run.
For instance: weather apps. Private sector ones are just a vector to track and sell your location data, and they rely on government data anyway. It'd be much better the government roll out an API and an app that uses it, so you can avoid the private sector altogether.
100% this. My (BR) state have a weather service¹, it's amazing. What people don't realize, it's that the service isn't just made for normal people see if is gonna rain, it's that the service is fundamental for agriculture and farmers. So they have radars, frosts alerts, specifically tailored to farmers as well.
It's also used to give alerts to electricity companies, etc...
Their weather prediction, it's just way better than any other service.
There's also national service, run by CPTEC/INMET, but they are lacking funding IMO...
I'm in NZ and actually prefer the Norwegian Govt weather site www.yr.no, which is about as accurate as our local one, easier to use and has no adverts.
This is exactly what has been playing out in the Netherlands the past couple of months: the weather institute (KNMI) released their own weather app that is functionally the same (in some cases superior) as the commercial apps that want your consent to track and serve ads.
I believe in Germany the national weather service in fact rolled out such an app, but was then stopped by a court because this counted as unfair competition with private entities.
In The Netherlands, weather companies sued the national weather service because their new app was seen as competing with their interests, but they lost the court case (summary proceedings): https://www.rechtspraak.nl/Organisatie-en-contact/Organisati...
> stopped by a court because this counted as unfair competition with private entities
I came across this recently as well. This is one of the most insane aspects of our current zeitgeist.
In a world where VC unicorns and megacorps commonly engage in dumping behavior to coerce market share, public orgs still need to walk on eggshells so they don't outcompete the "uwu smol bean" private sector. Even when they are providing what could be considered a public good or necessity, like weather info. Totally insane.
Switzerland has this for weather - government data, projections up to a week in advance. Of course no ads, tons of info ie on PM2.5, pollen, avalanche risk in mountains etc.
The weather app doesn't give much money. The main business sells weather and climate data B2B: agro, insurance, logistics, retail, supply chains, advertisement, medical, etc.
Companies whose primary business is weather apps are small, and such areas are highly competitive.
"Speaking to the The Palm Beach Post at the time, Barry Myers said he supported the weather service returning to its “core mission … which is protecting other people’s lives and property” instead of spending “hundreds of millions of dollars a year, every day, producing forecasts of ‘warm and sunny.’”"
Also from the same article:
"He told ABC News in May 2005: “We work hard every day competing with other companies and we also have to compete with the government.”"
As far as I know, AccuWeather is the main beneficiary. You can easily find reliable sources about it.
The cause is that NOAA publishes all weather data, calculated models (global coverage), meteostations data (global coverage), and weather radars to the public for free (US only, maybe also Canada, I don't remember). Therefore, many weather companies use such data to do their business and compete directly with AccuWeather. They don't like this.
On the other hand, state weather agencies that calculate global models in many countries don't provide such data for free. Therefore, startups and small companies who work in weather and climate fields use NOAA data and directly compete with AccuWeather or don't pay them for data access.
i think it more has to do with wanting to cut the deficit in preparation for tax cut extension + NOAA and other science agencies are politically vulnerable in a way that medicare/ss are not
> For instance: weather apps. Private sector ones are just a vector to track and sell your location data, and they rely on government data anyway.
Or you do it like we do here in Germany and take the dumbest route you can imagine.
We had a very well working publicly funded weather app from DWD (Deutscher Wetter Dienst). The primarily purpose of this app was to warn from extreme weather conditions, but it also included an ad free (because publicly funded) and rather accurate forecast.
Then a private entity sued claiming that the DWD app also providing weather information is unfair competition for private competitors. The won in court and now the publicly funded DWD app has a paywall for a previously free feature.
No the DWD is not allowed to provide a weather app I believe. Because it would compete with commercial apps. It offers an app which issues weather warnings though.
In the US your weather app is effectively government run.
Your iPhone skins the government data and makes it pretty. Nobody is selling your location or information. And you can always get the data directly if you want.
After dealing with many private sector services, I think a lot of things should be government run.
For instance: weather apps. Private sector ones are just a vector to track and sell your location data, and they rely on government data anyway. It'd be much better the government roll out an API and an app that uses it, so you can avoid the private sector altogether.