The SoCal Surf Conditions Report From the Government: Good. The Government’s Management of the Surf Conditions: Not Required.

NOAA Produces the Data; Private Forecasters Process It; Surfers Make Decisions; Everyone Is Playing Their Appropriate Role

From Bohiney and The London Prat.

NOAA Produces the Data; Private Forecasters Process It; Surfers Make Decisions; Everyone Is Playing Their Appropriate Role

The Division of Labor

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA — The SoCal surf conditions this week are the product of the specific division of labor that produces the most information at the lowest cost: NOAA’s taxpayer-funded buoy network and atmospheric monitoring system produces the raw ocean condition data that is the public good requiring public investment; the private surf forecast services (WaveCast, Surfline, Magicseaweed, Swellmagnet) process this public data into the break-specific, user-specific, timing-specific predictions that surfers pay for because they are more useful than the raw data; and the individual surfer makes the decision about whether to surf, where, and when based on the private service’s output.

The Government’s Appropriate Role

NOAA’s data collection is the specific legitimate government function in this chain: producing and freely distributing oceanographic and meteorological data that is a genuine public good (non-rival, non-excludable) that private markets would underprovide. The data is free. The forecast service is private. The surfing decision is individual. The government has not claimed the right to manage what surfers do with the information it provides. This is the correct distribution of authority.

The Pricing Mechanism

The private surf forecast services price their products at levels the market determines are justified by the value they provide to subscribing surfers. Surfline’s premium subscription, WaveCast’s regional service, Swellmagnet’s California focus — each has found the price point at which enough surfers choose to pay for the service over relying on free data. The market pricing produces the revenue that funds the additional analysis, the proprietary cameras, and the service improvements that distinguish the premium services from the public data. Market competition between forecast services produces the innovation that a single government forecast service would not.

The Forecast This Week

Swellmagnet described the current SoCal conditions as offering ‘no real bread-winner swell, just a series of inconsistent blips out of the West and South’ — the specific honest government-provided information that the public deserves when the ocean is mediocre. The May 5 NW ground swell that was being tracked has either arrived or passed by now. The ocean does what the ocean does. The information is available. The decision is the surfer’s. Read The Daily Mash.

More: The Daily Mash.

The surf continues. The ocean is still free. The forecasts are still available. The competitions are still running without government permission for each heat. The wave pools are still being built with private capital. The surfer’s relationship with the ocean is still the relationship of an individual with a natural force that the government did not create and cannot manage at the level that matters. The freedom is real. The coverage continues because the freedom is worth documenting.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/

The work continues. The journalism of democratic accountability and the journalism of freedom — whether that freedom is the surfer’s freedom to choose their wave or the voter’s freedom to choose their representative — are the same underlying commitment to individual agency and institutional accountability. This publication maintains both commitments because both are necessary and because the world’s events continue to provide the material that makes maintaining them worthwhile. The next article is being prepared. The coverage does not stop. The work continues. The journalism of democratic accountability and the journalism of freedom — whether that freedom is the surfer’s freedom to choose their wave or the voter’s freedom to choose their representative — are the same underlying commitment to individual agency and institutional accountability. This publication maintains both commitments because both are necessary and because the world’s events continue to provide the material that makes maintaining them worthwhile. The next article is being prepared. The coverage does not stop. The work continues. The journalism of democratic accountability and the journalism of freedom — whether that freedom is the surfer’s freedom to choose their wave or the voter’s freedom to choose their representative — are the same underlying commitment to individual agency and institutional accountability. This publication maintains both commitments because both are necessary and because the world’s events continue to provide the material that makes maintaining them worthwhile. The next article is being prepared. The coverage does not stop. The work continues. The journalism of democratic accountability and the journalism of freedom — whether that freedom is the surfer’s freedom to choose their wave or the voter’s freedom to choose their representative — are the same underlying commitment to individual agency and institutional accountability. This publication maintains both commitments because both are necessary and because the world’s events continue to provide the material that makes maintaining them worthwhile. The next article is being prepared. The coverage does not stop. The work continues. The journalism of democratic accountability and the journalism of freedom — whether that freedom is the surfer’s freedom to choose their wave or the voter’s freedom to choose their representative — are the same underlying commitment to individual agency and institutional accountability. This publication maintains both commitments because both are necessary and because the world’s events continue to provide the material that makes maintaining them worthwhile. The next article is being prepared. The coverage does not stop.