The fee pays for public broadcasting, not just public TV. Public broadcasting includes TV, radio, and the internet presence of the TV and radio media. I don't have a TV, but I do listen to public radio and I use public news web sites all the time.

I think the new system is much more reasonable than the previous system, which had loads of people claiming they don't own any kind of receiving device when that claim is just patently absurd for almost everybody today. This was different in the 50s or 60s where not everybody had a radio at home, much less a video device. Today it's just a system that rewards dishonesty. It also lead to an expensive byzantine bureaucracy (the GEZ) just for collecting the public broadcasting fees and snooping (in person!) after people who say that don't own a TV/radio/whatever.

What is crazy is that they didn't get rid of the GEZ when they changed the system, but I assume that'll happen sometime down the road. And of course you're free to disagree with having any public broadcasting system at all, or that it should be financed differently (I agree). But the previous fee system was just broken and needed to be fixed.

I agree, the previous system was bad. It has been replaced by a system that is also bad. Even worse, this one can be attacked in court because it is obviously unfair.

This is the only situation I know, where a company distributes their product for free and then asks everybody to pay for it. This is a special situation of course, because the public broadcasting has the official task to educate and report in a neutral way. This is welcome - no doubt.

But the presence in the internet and thus on computers is no excuse to collect money from everybody. In contrary, the presence of the internet allows to measure exactly, who is using the services. In a few years from now, perhaps even today, it would be possible to do the same with the wireless receivers, like TV.

So it would be easy to charge the households who use the service. No GEZ needed any more, but a fair system that charges for usage.

No. The way it's supposed to work is if you can access is, you've got to chip in. It's not supposed to be based on actual usage. In a manner of speaking, it's supposed to be available to everyone, even if no one was watching it.

You're not suggesting a strict improvement but a change, and a drastic one at that (essentially equivalent to a privatization), and I imagine you'd need a national two-thirds majority to change the constitution to implement it. I might be wrong about that, I don't know how much leeway there is regarding the implementation.

Just think of it as a tax, as essentially that's what it is, just a special one that bypasses the government to make it more difficult for them to exert influence on public broadcasting.

Why not just get rid of the state owned propaganda channels? Why is that never an option. It's absurd to have to be subjected to state propaganda and be made to pay for it. Brainwashing should be free, no?

Getting rid of the state owned propaganda channels is not an option because they're not exactly state owned nor are they propaganda channels.

And I'm not sure why I am supposed to prefer the brainwashing provided to me free by private channels -- free as in I pay for it once with further concentrated brainwashing in 3 minute segments and then once more when I pay the obligatory surcharge on everything because the money for those ads has to come from somewhere.

The basic idea was to have a channel that is neither state nor privately owned. This is why the fee is actually not a real tax, the collecting agency is not a federal agency and explains some other idiosyncrasies in the system.

It worked out somewhat ok. I'd say it's better than the Italian or the French system, but far from perfect. Separation from the government could be stronger, ... All in all I'd prefer to keep and fix it over abandoning the split and turning it all over to a private player or the government.

You're confusing GEMA and GEZ. The GEMA is not related to public TV and is (practically) only concerned with music.

The GEZ-issue is a completely separate topic. It's about whether we want an independent, not private or state-controlled broadcasting organization. The GEZ-Gebühr is like a special tax to pay for that. There's quite a bit wrong there as well, but alas, that's a different discussion.

I am not confusing the two.

The issue is the same: static payment in the form of a tax/obligatory fee, without providing a service. You pay a tax for empty CDs, because you COULD copy music onto them. You pay a fee for public broadcasting, because you COULD use it. The companies are different, but the idea and the mindset is the same. Collecting money, even if a service is not used.

No, we pay for public broadcasting because there once was a consensus that public broadcasting is an important thing to have in a democratic society, not because we might listen to it. We also pay for operas, museums, street maintenance, public transportation and another ton of things we may actually never use and might not have a need for. This is a completely different issue and folding them together will not help.

If you disagree on the notion that a public broadcasting organization is required, you're free to lobby for it. Up to now, the democratic consensus in germany is that we're glad to have one, and so we pay for it. I agree that the current way things are organized is royally fucked up, but that's a secondary issue.

"If you disagree on the notion that a public broadcasting organization is required, you're free to lobby for it. "

Read my other posts and you see that I don't disagree. This is about how the internet presence is used as a handle to collect money from everyone, not only the users. The fact that public broadcast is transmitted through the internet is everything BUT a reason to collect money from everyone.

Please note, that currently only the users are charged.

It's a common misunderstanding that only "users" are charged. Currently everyone is charged who owns a device that's in theory capable of receiving public broadcasts in whatever form available - it's irrelevant whether you use it or not. Own a radio - pay. Own a telephone with a radio receiver - pay. Own a TV-Set, but only for watching streams or DVDs on a big screen - pay. It's annoying, but somewhat consequent that everyone capable of receiving stuff on the internet has to pay as well. Actually, IMHO it should be a flat fee that everyone pays, just like the opera funding which comes from taxes. You could abandon all the GEZ and save money along the way.

If you want to pick on the GEZ system, choose a worthy target, such as the bullies they employ that sniff around and try to find people that don't pay their fees or the annoying letter they send you or the bloated administration or whatever. Or the political dependency of the "independent" broadcasting organization.

Still, my main point is a different one: It's been common consensus and obviously we still agree that a public broadcasting organization is beneficial - independent of whether we personally use it or not. And since we obviously both support that notion, we both should pay for it, as should everybody in germany. Just like for the opera.