Because there is a very limited amount of airwave space and you wouldn't want the "wrong people" seizing those spots.

Trust me I can go back and forth with you all day on the decline of radio and the reasons for it. I agree with everything you're saying about the state of the industry. Our only hope at this point is for the behemoths like iHeart and whatnot to no longer deal with the billions in debt they have and sell off their assets to various local owners who make radio what it should be. But that's a tall ask and an extremely unlikely future.

But at this point if you can't get an AM or FM license, you gotta go online. And fact of the matter is, most people are only listening to radio in their cars, and you can still listen to internet radio via your phone + bluetooth or aux cable in a car.

An AM/FM signal perhaps makes you seem more legitimate which is the only reason I can think of as to why these brothers continued to pirate the airwaves, but I assume all the advertising they are doing for themselves is online anyway. They promoted their programs on Instagram and whatnot so they could still do that for an internet-only station. When they got their first ever letter/warning from the FCC, they should have used their final moments on FM to say we are shutting down and used the opportunity to promote their new internet-only radio station. They opted not to do that and now they have to pay the price for it.

I am the biggest radio advocate there is. I worked in radio for the majority of my professional life and believe when operated correctly (having all local programming, personalities, and content), it is truly the best medium.

With that being said, this article and commenters here painting this as some sort of government overreach or overreaction is ridiculous. You cannot just broadcast on a random frequency all willy nilly. Those licenses are insanely expensive and these brothers should just have an internet radio station where they won't run into trouble.

Also the FCC has essentially no other powers other than legislating public airwaves so this is in no way a waste of their time or resources. This is exactly what they are set up to do. This is not the equivalent of 30 cops showing up to a drug store for a stolen candy bar and it should not be treated as such.

These brothers are providing a valuable resource for a specific community. No denying that. But you gotta do it legally. And it seems like they were given plenty of warnings ahead of time that they completely ignored. I have no sympathy here.

The MTA needs money to fund the subways. Part of the way the MTA earns money is from tolls. If they are able to bring in more money from tolls, they do not need to resort to fare hikes to bring in more money. Hope that clears it up.

You are correct that more people using cars does not encourage subway use. However, car users still generate revenue for the MTA.

311 is pretty good for non police related issues in my experience.