AccuWeather to discontinue free access to Core Weather API

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

AccuWeather Change & “Enshittification”

  • Many see the end of AccuWeather’s free API as part of a broader pattern: once ecosystems are built on free APIs, the terms shift to paid-only or “rent-only” subscription tiers.
  • The announcement’s marketing language (“excited,” “elevate your experience”) is mocked as corporate spin for simple monetization.
  • Some defend the move: running an API costs real money and staff; if developers value it, they should expect to pay.

NWS/NOAA, Politics, and Project 2025

  • Multiple commenters stress that U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) APIs remain free and are the true upstream source most commercial services repackage.
  • There is significant fear that NWS/NOAA will be “sabotaged” or privatized, citing:
    • Longstanding lobbying by AccuWeather to restrict NWS public outputs.
    • Trump‑era budget cuts and appointments tied to commercial weather interests.
    • Project 2025 language attacking climate and weather agencies as supporting “climate alarm.”
  • Others push back, calling this fearmongering and noting that a private company charging for its API is not itself government censorship. There’s also skepticism about how predictive Project 2025 is of actual policy.

Public Good vs Privatization & Deficit Claims

  • Strong pro‑public-good argument:
    • Weather data underpins aviation, shipping, agriculture, logistics, disaster response, and everyday safety.
    • NWS’s relatively small budget reportedly yields large economic ROI; cutting it is likened to “turning off a light to pay the mortgage.”
    • Examples from the UK and mapping (Met Office, Ordnance Survey) are used to argue that paywalled public data suppresses innovation and soft power.
  • Libertarian/deficit‑focused responses:
    • The U.S. debt is unsustainable; everything, including nice‑to‑have APIs, should be on the table.
    • Counter‑argument: recent huge tax cuts and larger-ticket spending make it implausible that gutting public weather is really about fiscal responsibility.

API Quality, Abuse, and Scraping

  • Some developers find NWS APIs clunky compared to commercial offerings, which add station networks, preprocessing, and better formats.
  • Others note that truly free APIs get hammered by bots and hobby projects; one operator shut down a weather site after a scraper inflated pay‑per‑call costs.
  • People discuss rate limiting, bot detection, and even serving fake data to bots. Some announce they will just scrape AccuWeather or its mobile app.

Alternative Weather Data Sources

  • Numerous free or low-cost alternatives are shared:
    • Government: NWS (US), Environment Canada, Norwegian MET/yr.no, KNMI (Netherlands), various European services.
    • Open/community: Open‑Meteo (heavily praised), Pirate Weather, wttr.in, RainViewer (radar), plus Home Assistant integrations and personal weather stations (Tempest, Ecowitt, PurpleAir).
    • Commercial with free tiers: OpenWeather, Apple WeatherKit (via paid dev account), others.
  • Several projects and libraries aggregate official national services (e.g., UniWeather.js) to bypass commercial middlemen.

Wider Internet & Climate Context

  • Commenters link this to a broader trend toward walled and “wallet” gardens, in part accelerated by AI-era mass scraping.
  • Climate politics loom large: some see undermining public weather infrastructure as part of a broader anti-science, anti-climate policy agenda; others frame it as ordinary conservative policymaking rather than coordinated conspiracy.