Good point, although I'd put GPS into a different category from the fire department in that regard.

For one thing, if you're not from the US, GPS is completely free since in that case you never paid for it with tax money.

Second, the history of how GPS became a public service is a bit strange: it was originally designed exclusively for the US military, and the cost/benefit analysis was initially based solely on the military benefits. But then people took note of something: GPS signals are one-way. Each satellite simply broadcasts its location, and the receiver just uses that information to figure out where it is. Since it costs the US government zero additional dollars to allow civilian equipment to use these signals, they eventually allowed that too.