51–60 of 252 posts
Anyone wanna offer me their hypothesis on what Amazon and other tech companies gain from offering internet to people who probably aren't valuable consumers?
If you gather a lot of people with just a bit of money each, they'll collectively have a lot of money.
Anyone wanna offer me their hypothesis on what Amazon and other tech companies gain from offering internet to people who probably aren't valuable consumers?
They probably are valuable customers. Tech companies have literally no reach where the internet does not touch. If they want to expand to their full (terrifying) power, they would need to give internet access to everyone, and then control it.
Really, this knee-jerk paranoia is difficult to understand. If Amazon stops serving its customers well it'll go out of business. If it pisses people off it'll go out of business. If it tries to break the law it'll go out of business. It has limited power -- effectively none compared to any kind of government -- and no ambitions, incentives or clear paths to acquire that kind of power.
Anyone wanna offer me their hypothesis on what Amazon and other tech companies gain from offering internet to people who probably aren't valuable consumers?
There will be some holdouts, but eventually it will become stupid for many places to invest in terrestrial infrastructure just to protect a technologically inferior domestic telecom company.
Anyone wanna offer me their hypothesis on what Amazon and other tech companies gain from offering internet to people who probably aren't valuable consumers?
Anyone wanna offer me their hypothesis on what Amazon and other tech companies gain from offering internet to people who probably aren't valuable consumers?
It s a ruse. The US will win the landgrab for controlling the communication networks of up and coming regions like Africa before the Chinese do
Private corporations owning more and more utility infrastructure really concerns me. Is there a world where nations band together and launch this as public infrastructure rather than private corporations lobbying a USA government agency for permission?
Govt's hardly own telecom infra, it's all in private hands. And when orgs get too big for their boots, things like this happen- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They probably are valuable customers. Tech companies have literally no reach where the internet does not touch. If they want to expand to their full (terrifying) power, they would need to give internet access to everyone, and then control it.
Terrifying power? Amazon has succeeded by getting customers what they want, and doing it cheaper, faster and more conveniently than their competition. Of all the tech companies to be cynical about, they most obviously make people's lives better , and expanding their reach (along with the "ancillary benefits" of giving people access to the internet...) is a moral good. Really, this knee-jerk paranoia is difficult to u…
Welcome to the dystopian future where no human anywhere on Earth can look up and see an authentic sky, as their ancestors did. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/01/science/starlink-spacex-a... And thanks to SpaceX (and now Amazon), astronomers will now have to do their observations from space. If only there was a way to get telescopes up there. Oh, wait... SpaceX just happens to have a way to solve the problem it creat…
> where no human anywhere on Earth can look up and see an authentic sky, as their ancestors did. The past ~80 years of light pollution has already prevented this from happening.
Only if you never leave a city.
Dark skies are so important and desirable to people that there's an entire tourism industry that revolves around giving people the ability to look at the night sky.
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/travel-tips-and-articles/travel...
https://www.visitarizona.com/dark-skies
https://www.visitcountydurham.org/opportunities/darkskies
https://www.travelandleisure.com/trip-ideas/space-astronomy/...
https://cpdarkskies.org/2018/12/13/destination-dark-skies/
https://thepointsguy.com/news/dark-skies-how-light-pollution...
Clearly there are lots of people who value the sky, even if a few billionaires and people on HN who believe in "tech at all costs" don't.
Welcome to the dystopian future where no human anywhere on Earth can look up and see an authentic sky, as their ancestors did. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/01/science/starlink-spacex-a... And thanks to SpaceX (and now Amazon), astronomers will now have to do their observations from space. If only there was a way to get telescopes up there. Oh, wait... SpaceX just happens to have a way to solve the problem it creat…
I don't think 3000 satellites are nearly enough to completely blot out the sky across the entire planet.
This is the beginning, not the end.
Anyone wanna offer me their hypothesis on what Amazon and other tech companies gain from offering internet to people who probably aren't valuable consumers?