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".

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groundzeros2015 3 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

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crote 3 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

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counters 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> 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.

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vel0city 44 minutes ago | parent [-]

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 a few seconds ago \| parent [-]
		And that literally isn't happening.

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groundzeros2015 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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