I find it interesting that u mention the German public broadcasting fee in a post about healthinsurance fees. Anyway I see the point why some criticise this specific fee. Imo the fact that is actually a separate “fee” and not hidden behind general state funding as taxes is the problem why people even mention it. Obviously when we would talk about taxes you will see there are much more fucked up ways where your tax is wasted. Anyway most of Europe does indeed have public broadcasting that is funded by public money. That is because they are indeed supposed to serve the public. In the EU, they are organized in the Eu Broadcasring Union. There is are very lengthy wiki articles on the history on PB or the EBU. However the gist of why this is such a vital concept could maybe summarized as " EBU members are public service media (PSM) broadcasters whose output is made, financed, and controlled by the public, for the public. PSM broadcasters are often established by law but are non-partisan, independent and run for the benefit of society as a whole."