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Amazon asked FCC to reject Starlink plan because it can’t compete, SpaceX says

arstechnica.com

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Re: Amazon asked FCC to reject Starlink plan because it can’t compete, SpaceX says

#161

Post by aynyc »

smegger001 wrote: post #152
OJFord wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I read on HN, its customer service must be very variable regionally. In the UK, I often knowingly pay more to buy from Amazon, because it continues to be my experience that if something goes wrong or isn't up to scratch, worst case they'll refund and send Hermes to collect it, no questions asked.

Also Audible, a subsidiary of Amazon, has very good customer service and a notoriously generous return policy. So it veries depending on business group as well as region.

Same for Zappos.

Re: Amazon asked FCC to reject Starlink plan because it can’t compete, SpaceX says

#162

Post by caconym_ »

morpheos137 wrote: post #143

hard to compete with a money losing boondogle. https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/2021/06/29/spacexs... I mean spending a dollar to make 38 cents is one hell of a business.

Are you under the impression that Starlink's business model starts and ends with selling (early model) ground terminals?

Re: Amazon asked FCC to reject Starlink plan because it can’t compete, SpaceX says

#163

Post by [deleted] »

marricks wrote: post #11

I disdain the owners of both but Bezos (fairly) seems to get a bit more ire here. The Verge’s piece elaborated that SpaceX hasn’t decided between two configurations and want approval for both even though they will only choose one, so everyone else has to plan around two different configurations. I’m not sure if that’s standard procedure but it does seem a bit unfair to add double work for everyone else.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon asked FCC to reject Starlink plan because it can’t compete, SpaceX says

#164

Post by cryptonector »

ajford wrote: post #35
bpodgursky wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit of a stretch to say they haven't decided; one depends on Starship being approved for launch (and working) in the right timeframe, and the other just uses Falcon 9s. I don't think regulators should force companies to be conservative in unrelated technical development when it doesn't have any material impact on others.

But it does have material impact on others. The Starlink constellations in this proposal are large, and any future development by others will have to account for the orbits of these potential constellations. That's 30k new objects to plan for, and with two configurations at play, that means accounting for essentially 60k objects in motion, effectively doubling the work someone would have to do to plan their deploymen…

That's not what Bezos is complaining about though.

Re: Amazon asked FCC to reject Starlink plan because it can’t compete, SpaceX says

#165

Post by [deleted] »

mataug wrote: post #49

Amazon always claims to focus on its customers, and ignore its competitors, this is supposed to be an important facet of the "Its always Day 1" philosophy. These actions, along with Amazon's complaints about Jedi contract seem to imply that amazon has now entered day 2. PS: I understand that the circumstances around the Jedi contract are different. I'm just trying to make a point that Amazon is now focussing more on…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon asked FCC to reject Starlink plan because it can’t compete, SpaceX says

#166

Post by modeless »

panick21 wrote: post #106
baron816 wrote: post #40

I hope the war between Musk and Bezos eventually gets adopted into a poorly conceived movie or TV mini series.

Its mostly a Musk trying to do things and Bezos trying to stop him. A war would consider them attacking each other. I have not seen a single lawsuit or complaint filed by SpaceX against BlueOrigin or Amazon. The certainty point out in their defense that Amazon is full of shit, but to my knowledge they have not issued complaints about Kupiter.

SpaceX actually did file a lawsuit against the Air Force for awarding contracts to ULA which is using Blue Origin's engines. And lost. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-spacex-lawsuit/musk... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-spacex-airforce/spa...

To some extent this is just how the business of government contracting is done. That said, I don't think it's right and Bezos is clearly worse.

I doubt we'll see any more of these lawsuits from SpaceX for two reasons. One, their technology and execution advantage has become so overwhelming that the government can no longer justify stiffing them in contracts, no matter how many nice steak dinners the competition buys for the procurement people. And two, Elon now has the ability to raise nearly unlimited money from private investors for practically anything he wants to do, and doesn't need government money as much anymore. Which ironically lets them bid lower and get more contracts.

Re: Amazon asked FCC to reject Starlink plan because it can’t compete, SpaceX says

#167

Post by caconym_ »

MauranKilom wrote: post #56
Seanambers wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is limited space, why shouldn't it be first come first serve? Anyways, it is my impression that space is kinda big..

Space is, but low earth orbit isn't. At least not when you want to fill it with millions of circles (not points!) that must keep certain distances from another.

> fill it with millions of circles (not points!) that must keep certain distances from another.

This is, at best, misleading. The objects that have to keep clear of each other are (effectively) points, and they can share orbits with different phasing. The most obvious real-world example of multiple objects sharing an orbit is geostationary orbit.

Re: Amazon asked FCC to reject Starlink plan because it can’t compete, SpaceX says

#168

Post by aidenn0 »

verdverm wrote: post #64
pdq wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ocean is most certainly 3D. The surface is 2D.

~2d was intended to imply effectively 2d for human activities, even airspace is probably closer to a layered 2d cake than true 3d like deeper space. LEO may be closer to an extension of airspace due to orbits and gravity. Still, due to the exponential growth with respect to the radius, there is significant room in LEO compared to anything terrestrial.

Quadratic growth, not exponential growth.

Re: Amazon asked FCC to reject Starlink plan because it can’t compete, SpaceX says

#169

Post by [deleted] »

staunch wrote: post #132
greedo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you judge someone by how they treat people, Bezos is not a "fairly good person." Whether it's warehouse workers, businesses that "partner" on Amazon, or corporate employees, Bezos treats people like shit. I also question whether he has "good motivations." He wanted to dominate commerce. Not just books, but everything sold. This is not a good motivation and Amazon should be getting busted up.

Anyone who has has worked on such massive projects as Bezos is going to have some failures along the way. It doesn't matter how good a person they are, there will be some accidental collateral damage along the way, at the very least. The average person has had much less negative impact in their life than Bezos, but they have also had almost infinitely less positive impact as well. In other words, it doesn't really ma…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon asked FCC to reject Starlink plan because it can’t compete, SpaceX says

#170

Post by adventured »

smegger001 wrote: post #155
polote wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't focus on your competitors when you don't have competitors. Has Amazon, the website, any competitors? They have an unique proposition, like Apple

Walmart, Ebay, Alibaba/AliExpress, Costco all jump to mind.

Target also has a perfectly fine site. Their business is doing quite well the last few years, including online.
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