Re:Hey advertisers, track this
by Mediterraneo10 on Wednesday June 26, 2019 @11:30AM
(#20285953)
> Weather Underground
Weather data is already gathered by state authorities in most developed countries. It would be nice if taxpayers could have free and convenient access to the data they paid for. Giving money to a for-profit corporation’s weather app only rewards rentseeking.
Re:Hey advertisers, track this
by JaimeThompson on Wednesday June 26, 2019 @12:08PM
(#20286295)
https://www.weather.gov/ is free (paid for via tax dollars) and has a lot of useful information. The map of the US with all the alerts and warnings on it is rather useful.
Re:Hey advertisers, track this
by apazzolini on Wednesday June 26, 2019 @12:02PM
(#20286241)
Are you suggesting there's no extra effort involved in taking a raw data feed and presenting it in an actually usable app for user?
I can get free weather details with the built-in iOS app, but I still bought Dark Sky because it's a better interface. I have no qualms with this purchase.
In Canada, the federal government has released their own weather app (WeatherCAN), including alerts for significant weather in your area. It's basically replaced the commercial weather apps on my phones.
I would pay for DarkSky if it was available here though; I quite appreciate their approach to location privacy: https://blog.darksky.net/location-privacy/
I firmly believe the only way out of this advertising dystopia is for us to start paying for things again. This will create more opportunities for people to run sustainable small business and spread wealth out more instead of concentrating it in a few advertising conglomerates.