I1 Posted June 30, 2004 Share Posted June 30, 2004 The previously pretty good regional meteo.fr weather forcasts are now being charged for if you want to look at more than 24 hr in the future.Previously they had averts that paid them money. However, in this day and age the principle of life seems to be "why have money when you can have more money ?". Greed is the name of the game. They still have adverts, so now get paid twice (most people move to an ad free service when they start charging). Basically they are "making it a both ends" - advertisers pay them to show their ads and you pay them to see the ads !My own opinions is that the principles of the Internet are that it should be loads of freely available infomation (clearly online stores are a bit of an exception). I find it disappointing that so many people are now starting to charge.Trouble is that if you need to start paying bit here, bit there for everything, the euros add up and the admin for so many small transactions becomes a nightmare (and costly).However, if meteo.fr want to charge there are alternatives: http://www.wunderground.com is a good free service. Has adds but is not quite so pessimistic as meteo.fr and also runs to full 7 day forecasts (rather than meteo.fr 4 day).Comments ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baz Posted June 30, 2004 Share Posted June 30, 2004 I assume you may not have seen a recent posting on this subject. You can still get Meteo France with their 4 day forecast via this link for free and if it helps its the English version:http://www.meteo.fr/meteonet_en/temps/france/prev/frprev.htmBaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iceni Posted June 30, 2004 Share Posted June 30, 2004 >My own opinions is that the >principles of the Internet are >that it should be loads >of freely available infomation (clearly >online stores are a bit >of an exception). I >find it disappointing that so >many people are now starting >to charge. Don't understand yr comment above re online stores - their product info is detailed and is freely available at no cost to the surfer."Free" means that someone else pays e.g. tax payers, customers of those that advertise etc. If a product or information is worth having then it is worth paying for, isn't it ? Johnhttp://www.iceni-it.co.uk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hegs Posted June 30, 2004 Share Posted June 30, 2004 The rates from internet ads have falled dramatically over the last few years (say 20x lower, no joking), the exception being very targetted keyword ads, which won't work with a general interest site like weather. What might have been viable a few years ago wouldn't be now. So who else is going to pay the cost of running the website, plus the source data (which is probably charged for from whoever owns the satellite), and the computer equipment to generate the forecast, if not the users? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hegs Posted July 23, 2004 Share Posted July 23, 2004 Some forecasts are now free again. Also an explanation of funding, etc.http://fr.news.yahoo.com/040722/85/3z5y9.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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