GPS has made a major impact on our world. How is it a free service that anyone with a phone can access? How is it profitable for companies to offer services like navigation without subscription fees or ads?
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The US government made it free for everyone.
I guess you could say American tax dollars pay for it.
Of course, lots of countries have their *own* GPS systems. Because they don’t trust the US government to not turn off access.
But ultimately it would probably be kind of hard to turn off access at this point. It’s really not *that* complicated a technology. It’s basically just a bunch of radios on satellites. And how long it takes you to get signals from various ones tells you where you’re at.
Edit: Russia, China, and the USA have their own GPS systems. The EU also has their own GPS system. But they’re not one country. All of these are available more or less for free. So taxpayers of those countries pay for it.
You’re talking about two things. GPS refers to the system that allows you to work out your position based on satellite positions. The satellites are just clocks with radios attached, broadcasting an ID number and the time. Things that use GPS are simply radios that listen for the time and ID and use it to work out the radio’s position — You can have inifinite GPS receivers since there’s no going back and forth, and there’s no additional cost in supporting more. Today, you can buy GPS radio-on-a-chip for pennies. GPS, and it’s cousins (GPS was developed by the US government, there’s also EU, Russian, and Chinese systems) were put in place by governments that launched the satellites into orbit, and while that’s expensive, it’s justified as a boost for the military and for the economy (think the transportation industry). Once in space, there’s very little maintenance required to keep the system going.
The other thing you are thinking of are map and navigation services. GPS tells your radio where it is, but you want to see that on a map, or have a computer work out how to get from there to somewhere else, right? Some services do charge money for subscription, some are funded with advertising dollars, some just sell media with maps on them and you need to purchase new media to get updated maps (my Toyota’s GPS navigation). In the case of things like phones, the software often transmits the phone’s location, and that location data can be used to select ads to show the user, determine when a particular place is busy, get traffic pattern data that can be sold, etc.
Originally, GPS for civillian applications was restricted in accruacy. This was to give the US army the advantage and prevent said technology to be used against the US and it’s allies.
Clinton however realised the economic impact that a free, non subscription based, full access to the GPS system would create. There you have it. From civil aviation to shipping and search and rescue, the GPS system offers too much good for it’s use to be restricted. It also paints the US in a very good light, so you can guess propaganda?
If they were to go back now and restrict it’s use, it would be an international PR disaster and a great opportunity for competing systems such as Russia’s to take over…
The US government made it free for everyone.
I guess you could say American tax dollars pay for it.
Of course, lots of countries have their *own* GPS systems. Because they don’t trust the US government to not turn off access.
But ultimately it would probably be kind of hard to turn off access at this point. It’s really not *that* complicated a technology. It’s basically just a bunch of radios on satellites. And how long it takes you to get signals from various ones tells you where you’re at.
Edit: Russia, China, and the USA have their own GPS systems. The EU also has their own GPS system. But they’re not one country. All of these are available more or less for free. So taxpayers of those countries pay for it.
GPS is not free. it cost [about $12 billion to put it up in the first place, and costs about $2 million per day to maintain](https://nation.time.com/2012/05/21/how-much-does-gps-cost/).
it was created by the US department of defense for military use, but after [korean air lines flight 007 got lost, accidentally flew into the soviet union, and was shot down](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007), the [reagan administration decided](https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/statement-deputy-press-secretary-speakes-soviet-attack-korean-civilian-airliner-1) there were good reasons to let civilians use it too.
it’s become so important to everyone, so now the pentagon can always get more cash to upgrade it, since it’s a public benefit.
A good [ELI5 answer comes in the second episode of Adam Conover’s “The G Word” on Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81037116?s=a&trkid=13747225&t=cp&vlang=en&clip=81567643)
The short version is that the government invested a lot of money to build GPS (and weather tracking) satellites for the military and provided them for general use so companies have spent the last few decades exploiting the free resource for creating for-profit applications on the back of technology and equipment provided and paid for by taxpayers.
GPS is not free. it cost [about $12 billion to put it up in the first place, and costs about $2 million per day to maintain](https://nation.time.com/2012/05/21/how-much-does-gps-cost/).
it was created by the US department of defense for military use, but after [korean air lines flight 007 got lost, accidentally flew into the soviet union, and was shot down](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007), the [reagan administration decided](https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/statement-deputy-press-secretary-speakes-soviet-attack-korean-civilian-airliner-1) there were good reasons to let civilians use it too.
it’s become so important to everyone, so now the pentagon can always get more cash to upgrade it, since it’s a public benefit.
A good [ELI5 answer comes in the second episode of Adam Conover’s “The G Word” on Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81037116?s=a&trkid=13747225&t=cp&vlang=en&clip=81567643)
The short version is that the government invested a lot of money to build GPS (and weather tracking) satellites for the military and provided them for general use so companies have spent the last few decades exploiting the free resource for creating for-profit applications on the back of technology and equipment provided and paid for by taxpayers.
Because the American taxpayer footed the bill.
Originally, GPS was only for military purposes. After a horrible accident where a KAL passenger flight strayed off course and was shot down, was GPS opened for all
Because the American taxpayer footed the bill.
Originally, GPS was only for military purposes. After a horrible accident where a KAL passenger flight strayed off course and was shot down, was GPS opened for all
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