Well, first they wanted to tax everyone a bit to pay for the BBC. And then someone said that would let the government easily pressure the BBC by withholding funds. And then someone said let's let the BBC collect it's own tax then. And someone else said that would be illegal to make people pay for the BBC if they aren't actually receiving any services from the BBC. And so here we are. So they wrote in this provision that in practice exempts precisely zero people but everyone tries to chase after anyway, contorting themselves through hoops to make it apply.

"Any services from the BBC" means any. TV broadcast, radio broadcast, or internet streaming. And because the actual intention was to make everyone pay, the law is written so you have to pay if you could receive one. If you have a computer and the Internet, you could receive internet streaming.

And then you have more stupid rules, like even though they're collecting a tax, they're not tax collectors so they don't have any authority to come into your house, so they invent weird ways to detect if you have a TV or not.

Presumably a left wing government would remove all this stuff and just make it a tax.

This isn't accurate, that's just what they want people to think. In practice it exempts most people below the age of about 30, most of whom do not consume any media within the scope of the TV license.

> the law is written so you have to pay if you could receive one.

That's not true. You're allowed to own equipment capable of receiving licensed broadcasts, all that matters is that you don't.

> the law is written so you have to pay if you could receive one. If you have a computer and the Internet, you could receive internet streaming.

That's not true, according to https://www.gov.uk/find-licences/tv-licence.

> You do not need a TV Licence to watch:

> • streaming services like Netflix and Disney Plus

> • on-demand TV through services like All 4 and Amazon Prime Video

> • videos on websites like YouTube

> • videos or DVDs

The whole scheme seems like something an American would come up with: paying for public services with regressive user fees instead of broad-based progressive taxation.

But it's unheard of (for media[1]) in the US and common in Europe.

[1]The closest thing we have here might be parking passes for state parks, even unpopular ones where free parking would remain mostly empty.