US Defense Department will stop providing satellite weather data

“We shouldn’t keep trusting nation-states for meteorology data. They can and will cut off access if the powers that be demand it, even if it hurts billions of others by doing so.” - Me, circa mid-2010s

“You’re overreacting, nobody would be dumb enough to cut off access to data like that. Stop being alarmist.” - Everyone I have shared that thought with since.

Unfortunately, “I Told You So’s” don’t pay my rent, otherwise I’d have a decent home of my own by now. Here’s hoping ESA or JAXA help fill that gap until the UN can take over (an organization ideally suited for global meteorology tasks).

Michael Lewis, in the Fifth Risk, has a whole chapter on how during Trump 1 the head of Accuweather was basically trying to shut down free distribution of weather updates from NOAA/National Weather Service.

The reason:

For profit weather companies don't want free government weather updates going out to their potential customers.

PS. Having been on HN for many years and watched the full "disrupt old industries!" cycle, I'm not that surprised this is where we have ended up.

People probably reacted poorly to this because it's hard to disambiguate from "we shouldn't keep trusting nation-states for x [because I'm actively working to profit from providing an alternative]" from "[because I'm worried others will dismantle it despite my best efforts to prevent it]"