The pros have to bid at auction to tie up bandwidth with encrypted comms that cannot benefit or be used by others.

If people want encryption, they are welcome to use the ISM bands where it is allowed, or get licenses for the commercial areas of the spectrum.

But amateur radio is a public commons for those who have the interest in getting licensed, and encrypted comms being normalised damages that, making it less accessible to others and discouraging interaction between enthusiasts.

I fear that with encryption allowed, amateur radio will become a collection of competing 1-to-1 links and hidden commercial activity taking advantage of the cheap spectrum at everyone else's expense.

There is a lot of utility in having a bunch of 1-to-1 links. If you look at the internet you will see that it supports multitask, but it is rarely used nowadays. You would expect to see similar things from other communication protocols. The days that everyone's communications went to everyone are over.

Even if there is hidden commercial activity going on, is that really so bad? Imagine if the internet banned commerce on it, there wouldn't be so much investment into it.

There is a lot of utility in 1 to 1 links, but you don't need encryption to do that, while adding it does encourage it at the expense of other modes.

As for commercial activity, the whole point of the amateur spectrum is specifically to carve out portions of the spectrum protected from commercial interests! I agree that commercial, and also unlicensed use of radio is important, but leave commerce out of the tiny portion (and it really is small) part of the spectrum that's specifically regulated to be free of commercial interference.

What percentage of the Internet, and the devices that connect to it, is devoted to ads, spam, malicious traffic, and the prevention of malicious traffic?

I’d rather not have the ham bands reduced to more of the same.

Why are ads lumped in? Typically they are only a fraction of the content they are sponsoring and they provide a service to consumers by connecting them to businesses they may find value in.

Nothing stops spammers from spamming on HAM right now and it's 1 to many which makes it more effective.

> Nothing stops spammers from spamming on HAM right now

Except the existing regulations, which is why spamming is relatively rare on Amateur radio.

Occasional infringement does occur, but it is relatively easy to track down and deal with.

And of course this is is the whole point of this thread.

The existing regulations would still exist if encryption was allowed. Spammers still are incentivized to not encrypt their spam to maximize the number of listeners that exist.

If encryption were allowed, there would be no way to observe that hams were using their licenses in ways that comply with most of the FCC rules that differentiate "amateur" from professional radio use cases.

In my view, of course many hams would use encryption in reasonable ways but quite likely other uses of the spectrum would proliferate that are explicitly forbidden by the rules that carve out the amateur service as distinct from all the other ones.

This same argument applies to all encryption. If E2EE is allowed people can't monitor that people aren't breaking the law on whatever messaging service. Privacy is deemed to be more important than being able to enforce the law.

> people can't monitor that people aren't breaking the law

Typically even without encryption there are laws banning monitoring of such communications. For example, tapping into someone's analog phone line or listening to unencrypted mobile phone conversations, etc.

Conversely, even system we view as private are routinely monitored by governments, etc.

Amateur radio rules seem to derive both from the idea of preventing public nuisance and also the idea of public resources (like national parks, etc.). The amateur spectrum is like a park -- visitors are not allowed to open businesses on the land, nor are they allowed to be a nuisance to others.

"The pros" pay for a slice of bandwidth every year.

If you want private communication, use a private frequency. If you want to use a shared spectrum, do it in a way, where everyone can tell you to buzz off.

>If you want private communication, use a private frequency.

Which the HAM bands could be which is the point of my comment.

But the idea behind ham radio is that everything is open for everyone to learn, try and experiment, and not that you can have private conversations without paying your phone bills.

This is like having an open public square, and then someone decides to "privatize" an area, cordon it off, put temporary walls around and not-let anyone else look at (well.. listen) to what's happening there.

No, it's like reading an invisible book in a public square. You are may be reading like everyone else, but since no one can violate your privacy and see what you are reading they can't tell if you are reading something that is government approved.

But the whole idea of ham radio is, that anyone can ask you what you are reading, and that you're not wasthing that space with your privacy. It's about learning and technical experimentation and not about free private communication.

You want to take a bit of the spectrum away from everyone else and not let them neither listen nor join the conversation.

You can get a private frequency, pay a bit of money for that, and be private as much as you want.