Americans fund public TV through taxes, Brits just make it opt-out if you meet certain criteria by labeling it as a license.
You tell me which has more “freedom.”
Comment on Anon is Bri’ish
lessthanluigi@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
I can’t believe the TV license is real. I just can’t. I guess it helps makes good tv tho
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
lessthanluigi@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
The one where I don’t have to upload my I.D. to watch porn, BABY! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅
lewis6991@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’ll just leave this here worldpopulationreview.com/…/porn-site-verificatio…
lessthanluigi@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Sometimes I forget how much freedoms we have in Washington State. The only thing is strict gun laws, but it’s mostly background checks and limited magazine sizes
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
well I live in Georgia (US state) who brought it in before the UK did.
rtxn@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The early idea was to support the state-owned and state-operated channels through taxes. Then the channels got privatized and now the taxes are going straight into the pockets of The Brexit Bunch. I mean why would they voluntarily cut off a money source that people were already paying.
UncleGrandPa@lemmy.world 2 months ago
In San Diego they had a toll bridge… once it was paid for they kept the toll. When asked why they were still charging a toll… They said the toll booths still cost money to run. They had to be sued for the toll to stop
nialv7@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Having to charge toll because they need money to run the toll booths is the most Kafkaesque thing I have heard in a while.
schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
This is/was a thing in many other European countries too.
In Austria it used to be (not long ago, a few years at most) that only people who owned a TV needed to pay it, not anymore, now every household has to pay it, so it is basically a household tax.
alsaaas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
It’s not a tax tho? At least not in Germany. It’s going directly to the state-broadcasting service but unconditionally; the idea being it’s harder to influence the content or threaten them with cutting off their funding.
schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
This is also the case in Austria according to orf.beitrag.at/faq/allgemein so whether to call that a “tax” or not is purely a terminological question. It used to be that this was only required for owning a TV, but this was hard to enforce because there was no automatic legal requirement to let inspectors into one’s home and companies started to produce TVs without a TV tuner (i.e. could only stream from the Internet) to get around this.
MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 2 months ago
The TV license is definitely real. All the others are fake though (I believe).
www.gov.uk/find-licences/tv-licence
turkalino@lemmy.yachts 2 months ago
Wtf is this in addition to paying for cable/satellite?
JadedBlueEyes@programming.dev 2 months ago
Nope. You can just plug your TV into the aerial to get BBC + free channels. Netflix and whatever costs extra tho
MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 2 months ago
I’m surprised that according to the website, they actually let you get away without a license if you only use commercial streaming services and don’t watch any BBC content. In Germany, that excuse doesn’t fly. As long as your device has the capacity to receive aerial broadcast, you have to pay.
turkalino@lemmy.yachts 2 months ago
I mean we have free over the air TV here in the states too, just don’t need a loicense for it
Deceptichum@quokk.au 2 months ago
Do people elsewhere in the world pay for “cable” tv? I know we had a version here in Australia but it was so rare, no one really used it.
turkalino@lemmy.yachts 2 months ago
It was pretty big over here in the US, and still is with Gen X and older. Nowadays, pretty much the only reasons to get it are if you’re a sports fan or enjoy brainrot 24/7 news networks
lessthanluigi@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Brexit really was a mistake
MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
The long knife prohibition is real.
davidagain@lemmy.world 2 months ago
True, but there’s no such thing as a knife licence.
MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
I mean, yes, but I was more referencing that there was exactly one other thing of any substance besides the TV thing in this greentext.
Mac@mander.xyz 2 months ago
Best joke in this thread
MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 2 months ago
Thanks for noticing me, Senpai.