You have to pay a fee if you live in Germany. It does not matter what kind of technology you have access to in theory. Thank god the German state does not have to check whether or not you have to own a TV.

yes, but it continued:

ca. 2015, you have to pay it anyway, with no exemptions

ca. 2020, they start randomly sending out delay penalties, even if you are late by days, without ever notifying you of the due dates

ca. 2022, they sneakily shift the 3-months fee forward, first you can pay it at the end of the period, then in the middle month, then soon at the beginning

meanwhile, the programming gets worse and worse every year. Then they get surprised if people vote for parties which promise to abolish it.

If you vote for fascists - whose lead candidates seem to be spying for Russia and China - because of a 17€ license fee per month, then you should reevaluate your perspective on the public broadcasting system and on money.

It's 18,36€ per month, not 17.

If you don't want people who don't care for TV or Radio (they do exist) to vote for AfD then you shouldn't have introduced a Rundfunkbeitrag that's very unpopular with many more. Scandals about money being badly spent just adds to the distrust and lack of interest people have in ARD, ZDF etc.

German TV Fee is significant older than AFD. Even the latest reform is older than AFD.

The current Rundfunkbeitrag which forces everyone to pay for something regardless wether they own a TV or radio, was introduced on January 1st 2013 and AFD was founded on February 6th the same year. Are 35 days a significant difference?

I didn't mind the old system to finance ARD/ZDF/... as I don't care about TV or radio and choose not to have either, but the new system is just not fair.

The French were smart enough to change their funding to be drawn from the general state budget: Less effort and no more grumpy people like me.

The hate and complains about the Rundfunkbeitrag was always there, this did not start in 2013 or with the AFD. And the AFD today is very different from the original AFD in 2013, which didn't care about this.

Doesn't seem as if the public broadcasters are doing such a fine job, if their viewers obviously don't even know the definition of a fascist.

I'm not sure it's worthwhile to have this discussion here, but please elaborate.

Would agree with that, but just very briefly: the main characteristic that defines fascism is a strong cult of personality. The Afd doesn't have that at all. They also don't display any kind of expansionist ambitions, but are rather nationalistic in an isolationist kind of way similar to most of the right-wing populists who have gained popularity throughout Europe. I have very little doubts that some of the hardliners in the party and possibly even some of the more moderate people are authoritarian, but fascists they are not.

> fascists

Well, they aren't actually. Lay off the hyperbole.

There are court rulings saying something different.

These court rulings mainly rely on laws around freedom of expression which sometimes contain some quirks around the possibility of being able to prove something. The courts didnt declare AfD politicians fascists.