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US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

reuters.com

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Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#641

Post by advael »

czl wrote: post #637
advael wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to look up reflexivity, as I was not previously familiar with it. I fail to see how it salvages your claim, and suspect you're fixating on this bit of economics trivia because you dislike that I made fun of the thing you said, and think I'm trying to get into a pissing contest about "intelligence", and like most ridiculous children who get into pissing contests about intelligence, seem to think that asking me t…

That is not correct. My words above require intelligence to understand and my ability to explain them in simpler terms is limited. This explanation from GPT4 is good. Hope it helps. ------ The reply you've presented suggests a debate about the intentions behind Elon Musk's public statements, specifically regarding whether he's misleading people for financial gain or using a strategy known as "reflexivity" to motivate…

The former seems to clearly be a more parsimonious explanation of what we've seen. After all, what is often at stake, as in the case of the linked article, is financing based on concrete promises of progress, and the claims made by Musk are never about problems no one else thinks are possible to solve at all, so the reflexivity position here seems more like a defensive motte rather than a meaningful strategic analysis

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#642

Post by doikor »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #233
Deprecate9151 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That argument is a red herring. The RDOF program is concentrated in specific geographic areas. Starlink onboarding subscribers in other areas doesn't really have a bearing on this program if they can't prove they can extend that to the areas in scope and hit the service levels they bid at. It might even hurt their argument if performance degrades as they focus on areas outside the RDOF locations. More traditional off…

A rule of thumb is that big infrastructure projects are always significantly behind schedule and budget. Fiber rollouts are big infrastructure projects. They'll be late, almost guaranteed. Therefore demonstrating that they can hit a schedule is very difficult.

While this is true to some extent it is also true that an infrastructure project finishing on time/budget is not news so you will hear about those.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#643

Post by notyourwork »

dnissley wrote: post #633
spiderice wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least back up your snark with an explanation of how that answers GP’s question.

I thought it was pretty obvious, and don't detect any snark. A business/industry gets subsidies and is able to grow faster than it would have or just simply grow where nothing would before. Those businesses are then subject to taxes which the government collects and puts to use, which then benefits the populace at large.

It’s really not all that obvious to me. In particular you’re saying the reason to hand SpaceX nearly a billion is so I can do business with them faster because the subsidy reduces their time to market? If so, that’s a bogus argument in my opinion. I’d prefer a more direct mechanism like ownership and profit sharing. There is plenty of venture capitalists out there, if we can float WeWork, I’m sure there’s people who can float SpaceX and other perhaps more valuable to society businesses.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#644

Post by someplaceguy »

wolverine876 wrote: post #622
User23 wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're running for office. In that case you can lie to your heart's content about what you're offering.

For good reason: We can't have politicians regulating the speech of the critics and opponents. Nothing is more protected in the US than political speech, esp (afaik) by someone running for office.

Who said anything about regulating speech?

You could just prosecute a politician if he didn't deliver what he promised, you know.

Outside politics (and depending on the context) this is called breach of contract, fraud, misrepresentation or, say, false advertising or consumer protection violation.

It's also colloquially called "holding someone accountable".

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#645

Post by keep_reading »

User23 wrote: post #589
tw04 wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, no. That's why there are laws against pyramid schemes, and false advertising. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/truth-advertising https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/investor_protection_guide_py...

Unless you're running for office. In that case you can lie to your heart's content about what you're offering.

Presidents aren't kings, so even they cannot guarantee their proposed policies will actually be enacted into law. That's the sticky bit.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#646

Post by ddxv »

I_Am_Nous wrote: post #15

When applying for RDOF you say what service tier you are targeting and instead of shooting for the minimum 25/3, Starlink applied for 100/20. When they didn't reach those speeds[1], they were ineligible but not just because they didn't hit the required speeds on their existing network. There are more details here[2] but the jist is that Starlink bid to supply 100/20 internet to over half a million subscribers and the…

I just checked my Starlink and we have 150Mbps/6Mbps, by Speedtest.com, is that the same concept as the numbers you reference? Is the concern that if more users came online they wouldn't be able to maintain 100/20? I don't know much about the topic, FYI.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#649

Post by shaklee3 »

I_Am_Nous wrote: post #15

When applying for RDOF you say what service tier you are targeting and instead of shooting for the minimum 25/3, Starlink applied for 100/20. When they didn't reach those speeds[1], they were ineligible but not just because they didn't hit the required speeds on their existing network. There are more details here[2] but the jist is that Starlink bid to supply 100/20 internet to over half a million subscribers and the…

Thanks for the excellent summary. I said this in previous stories (not as eloquently) and got an angry mob for not praising spacex. There's a difference between respecting what they're doing for launches and what they're doing for Internet. The former is extremely impressive and groundbreaking.

The latter is hitting the same problems everyone in the industry knew would happen. It costs too much money to maintain the launch cadence, speeds will suffer as the network gets congested, and latency will grow. All of these happened and are continuing to get worse.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#650

Post by tw04 »

someplaceguy wrote: post #644
wolverine876 wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For good reason: We can't have politicians regulating the speech of the critics and opponents. Nothing is more protected in the US than political speech, esp (afaik) by someone running for office.

Who said anything about regulating speech? You could just prosecute a politician if he didn't deliver what he promised, you know. Outside politics (and depending on the context) this is called breach of contract, fraud, misrepresentation or, say, false advertising or consumer protection violation. It's also colloquially called "holding someone accountable".

> You could just prosecute a politician if he didn't deliver what he promised, you know.

What you’re asking for is a dictator. Politicians can’t unilaterally decide what happens by design. I think what you mean to say is that you want to prosecute politicians if they don’t vote in alignment with their stated goals, but even that is loaded in the US.

Let’s assume we’re talking about a liberal politician.

If he or she ran on banning guns, introduced legislation to ban guns, but some conservative added a rider to ban abortion, should he or she be prosecuted for voting against their own bill? Because that kind of nonsense happens all the time.

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