I think the cruisers who are so much in support of these "free" information aides should belly up and pay for it themselves. I'm sure Jeffrey could look at his books and set a pay-for-play fee that would offset all of his advertising receipts....and he says it's not about the money anyway. Then you wouldn't be taxing the rest of us, and non-users will respect you for stepping up. Maybe you'd like to lead the effort to get Jeffrey to transition the system?
In the mean time, I'll be discussing the downsides of all of this with fellow boaters, marina managers, corporate offices, and State funding offices in Michigan and Wisconsin.
I think I understand your basic premise. You suggest that any service that is paid for, not by the end users of the service, but in by advertisers, raises the total cost to the general public. I think you are probably correct. I may be able to watch over the air TV for free, but it is paid for by advertisers which raises the cost of the products those advertisers sell even to those who don't watch TV.
If I pay for a meal at a restaurant I am using a service that costs the business money, maybe 2.5% of the transaction cost. This coat has to be recovered from al, patrons of the restaurant even if they pay cash for their meal. The credit card companies profit, the restaurant benefits, the cc patron gets the convenience of being able to use a cc to pay, but the cash customer gets none of the benefit but still has to pay for the increased cost of the meal. Same issue.
If you are consistent, you would be spending a lot more time ranting about credit card companies than you are about services such as AC, dockwa or others. Somehow I doubt that is the case. I also notice that you are doing the ranting on a web forum that you are not paying for. Your ranting here, using your same argument, is somehow, somewhere costing non-TF users money because you are not paying directly for this service.
Maybe it is because I have finished off a lovely 22oz bottle of stout all by myself, but I find myself being rather blunt. I had suggested that maybe this issue should simply lie so that it wouldn't come to this point but that wasn't a suggestion you found acceptable. Instead of conducting myself in a "nice and friendly" manner as I normally endeavor to do, here I am naming your ranting about AC and its like as boorish and ill conceived. In calling your persistent personal diatribe against Jeffrey rude, I am myself putting aside the rules of decorous public discourse to which I normally try to ascribe. My own behavior has now become completely unacceptable, particularly as I am enjoying the lovely Canadian scenery, the country which epitomizes the concepts of nice and polite.
And so, I would like to apologize to you semi-planing, to the TF community, and to the great country of Canada, for my lapse. I should go take a nap.