Re:Your Phone Has an FM Chip. So Why Can’t You Listen to the...
by Zak on Tuesday July 12, 2016 @12:57PM
(#12080598)
Public schools or libraries are probably a better analogy.
In the US, various forms of taxation at the federal, state and local level go in to providing funds for public schools. Everyone pays for schools even if they have no children. The only significant exception is that in some places, parents can receive vouchers to pay for private schools. Either way, the goal is that everyone receives a basic education to make a better society.
Everywhere in the US I've had a library card, it was similar. Libraries are funded by general taxes and their basic services are provided without charge to users who live in their tax area (county, most places).
Whether publicly-funded radio stations are a valuable public good in this way is reasonable to debate, but that's the model.
For roads, maybe somewhere it's the same, but there are also funding ways that work differently. If you use the road (have a vehicle) you (probably, depends on where you are) pay the tax, either directly or included with the fuel price. If you don't drive a vehicle but use the roads indirectly (because the services you use, use that roads) you pay indirectly - trough your funding of those services and their respective use of vehicles. E.g. you buy stuff in a grocery store, the store pays to a transportation company, the transportation company pays taxes for their trucks - everyone's paying for what they actually use. So, it still feels fundamentally different from the broadcast taxes to me.