One thing that that struck me the other day. I was watching a load of tv on a Danish channel. Wildlife programs. All very good with excellent film work and production. Of the five or six programs I watched, every single one of them was produced by the BBC. So even if you do not wish to pay you licence, because you don't ever watch the BBC you might be watching more of their products than you realise.
As for the licence in general, I agree it is just another way of wringing more money out of people on the premise of "because we can".
A bit off topic, we have cable and we have to purchase "packages" to get the good channels you have to buy the big package. Result, to be able to see the BBC channels we also have to pay for the fifteen or so French, German, Italian, Spanish, channels! none of which get watched. Now that is a rip off!
Ian M