On 6/10/2011 7:01 PM, Invisible wrote:
> On 06/10/2011 07:32 AM, Paul Fuller wrote:
>
>> GPS strikes me as a counter-example. It costs somebody (the US military
>> / government) a lot of money. I didn't pay for it except by the most
>> circuitous reasoning (not being a US citizen). I don't see how I'm being
>> sold by it or for it. Now I do have to pay for a GPS receiver but there
>> isn't as far as I know any component in that cost for building and
>> running the satellite network, ground stations etc.
>>
>> To every generalisation there is at least one obvious and irrefutable
>> counter-example - even this one.
>
> Allow me to refute: The US government *needs* GPS, whether you have
> access to it or not. Once you have a GPS service, it costs nothing to
> allow civilians to access it as well. (Indeed, it would cost money to
> *stop* then accessing it.) Ergo, in fact giving you GPS isn't costing
> anybody anything.

Perhaps that is true.  But it contradicts your definition:

 >> A better explanation might be "if it costs somebody money but you
 >> didn't pay for it, you're being sold"

As you probably know the GPS signal used to have a publicly available 
accuracy of about 100m.  Accuracy to about 20m was available only to the 
military as that part of the signal was encrypted.  That was the 
original design and implementation.

It took a deliberate decision to make the full accuracy available for 
civilian use.  Simply deciding this and implementing it no doubt cost a 
significant amount.  Then the military has developed extra capability to 
'deny' GPS to selected areas when they desire.

That and other requirements no doubt cost more than the strictly 
military requirements.

Even if I'm simply travelling on a commercial airliner I'm benefiting as 
a result.  As far as I know there is no direct payment to use the service.

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