aprs or spot benefits
The reason I spent the money on the spot 3 and am going to set up an aprs system is that I have found it is a lot of fun giving friends and family the web page and they can track all your flights in real time. Both for safety and entertainment of those that cant fly along. Even pilot and paws flights have used it to see my arrival time at other airports for pick ups. Its been very handy.
I lend my spot out when i dont need it. An rv buddy just returned from a trip from Ontario to Utah, Colorado, Texas and Arizon. Having his friends and family watch in real time progress on the internet on google earth is pretty cool. We could zoom right down and see what runway he used, what weather was ahead, and even where he parked on the tarmac each day. Well worth a bit of a premium over a simple plb that only gets turned on if disaster strikes and you are able and remember to activate it.
TK had an aprs system that tracked his flights, my guess is the track will be hugely valuable to investigators. Just putting that out there for people considering a plb over a tracking sytem. If you are unable to activate the plb, a track is of way more value too. Just food for thought, no system is perfect.