I feel that it’s fine that businesses are charged for heavier use of a tax-funded service, especially when it would increase the running cost of those services, and where there’s no obvious benefit to the taxpayer.
I get the argument about using taxpayer services to leverage a more competitive business environment, and I agree that’s important, but I don’t think an advertising newsletter is a good example.
And honestly the data’s fairly cheap for high-accuracy weather data. You get a lot of API calls for not very much money.
The massive dataset, the GRIB, is either free or close to free if you get the US version but is expensive if you get the UK version. I appreciate your point that a fair price should be charged but you can't compete with free.
The UK government has made questionable decisions over the years regarding what it does, personally I think the government has no business making cars (British Leyland) or making planes (Concorde). But weather is important to the realm and a fair candidate to be funded by the taxpayer but with that data also being free.
It would be nice to think that uses of weather data are going to be life saving things, but the applications fall off quickly once you have the farmers and the sailors sorted out with what they need. You soon go from this to betting on horses and whether the ground will favour particular horses.
As for the example of selling deckchairs or umbrellas, consumer spending is what drives Western economies, like it or not.
Not all public goods have to benefit everyone, but there does have to be a clear distinction between what is best provided as a public good by government and what is best left to the private sector.
I get the argument about using taxpayer services to leverage a more competitive business environment, and I agree that’s important, but I don’t think an advertising newsletter is a good example.
And honestly the data’s fairly cheap for high-accuracy weather data. You get a lot of API calls for not very much money.