NWS could push the data commercial users want into a requestor pays S3 bucket. Archived/historical data could be rate limited, and made available for free (and I'd probably upload it into the Internet Archive for good measure).
There is a solid case that citizens requesting weather data should have such requests fulfilled at no or minimal cost, similar to GPS services (a public good) or FOIA requests. The government does charge user fees for some commercial services (IRS tax transcripts for income verification, for example).
EDIT: Please take the time to submit a comment on this issue [1] (last page of the pdf, December 18th deadline).
> There is a solid case that citizens requesting weather data should have such requests fulfilled at no or minimal cost, similar to GPS services (a public good) or FOIA requests.
I totally agree that weather data should be provided for free as a public service. The NWS is one of the true gems of the US government.
That said, this view isn't universally shared. Many other countries' meteorology services charge for access to data - especially if you want access to the raw model output. Most famously, the US's GFS output is provided for free while the EU's ECMWF output requires a paid subscription.
If open access to weather data is something that's important to you, please make your voice heard!
The EU has the ability to copyright things in general, which is horribly wrong IMO.
This is one of the few areas I'll defend the US to the bitter end on. Content produced by a government can not be morally copyrighted. The funding comes from the people, and therefore the copyright belongs to them too. Another way of putting it is the public domain and government copyright are the same thing logically.
There is, but it has its own downsides. Also, charging for internet services would have the effect of cementing the monopolies: why pay $5 for signal and $5 for mastodon when I can pay $5 for Facebook and get both?
