661–670 of 1001 posts
Commercially speaking, does Starlink really need 100x bandwidth? Starlink's target market is limited. It is very good for ships, remote area, but not necessary in cities where most people live. I am not sure whether the launch and maintenance cost of another 100k satellites is necessary for such a limited market, unless the cost of launch (Starship) and the satellites themselves drops greatly.
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It has nothing to do with competition. You could have as many competitors as possible and no one is going to put a cell tower up in a remote location.
I've been on tiny Indonesian islands far from anything that could be considered civilization, and they'll have cell towers more often than not.
When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber to my farm area, at ~$25/900mbps 10ms. While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.
> I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have India is rapidly expanding fiber internet connectivity, even in rural areas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharat_Broadband_Network In addition, 4G/5G coverage is extensive: https://www.ookla.com/articles/india-mobile-connectivity-1h2... See India in this 5G global coverage map: https://www.ookla.com/articles/5g-map-2026 The…
On top of that add the reusability stunt streamed in 4k making them extrapolate a not well defined pivotal leap for ROI....and there you have it , it's the Apollo sinkhole all over again with money being lit on fire an essentially no quality of life ROI for society.
At least the Apollo mission got us the ability to deliver nukes to Moscow in 30 minutes or less. This will be a total sinkhole.
All the while we are held hostage by a Nation with consumption rates which are a thenth of ours and we still have the audacity to reject nuclear fission because it's "dangerous"
Hopefully LEO constellations can be made redundant with terrestrial comms. Are there additional terrestrial signal propagation modes that could solve for the same needs as satellite data?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome I wonder what spacex will be worth when launching satellites is impossible for a couple hundred years.
Stop trying to make Kessler syndrome a thing - it was never a thing, it isn’t a thing, it will never be a thing. It is just pearl clutching by those too afraid of modern life. Gravity wasn’t a documentary.
And overall, today's space powers are much more careful about not making messes in orbit.
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It also creates a private internet on which “private enterprise” does not have to abide by the Constitution or any subordinate laws. Sure, it’s just “fear mongering” now, just like digital ID, digital currency, mass surveillance, and speech police were 30 or so years ago, but what happens when terrestrial cable internet gets too expensive and everyone’s subject to Elon’s space internet? It’s basically the similar pla…
This would allow you to throw a flock camera up literally anywhere on earth. If we are being honest, we are probably only a couple years out from real Orwellian mass surveillance states, totally censored and mined communications, and general purpose compute restricted or made illegal I wouldn't even be surprised. All the incentives lead right to that and we are halfway there in many ways already.
Case in point, are you aware that the whole 2+2=5 line was a deliberate falsification of a perfectly sound and even healthy statement that Orwell stole and perverted, i.e., 2 + 2 + the people's enthusiasm = 5 ???
Then, when you start finding out that the CIA, at the same time that it was conducting its MKUltra "experiments", was aggressively buying up all the rights to 1984 and then pushed them into schools and made the movies in close collaboration with Propagandawood; you have to at least start asking yourself extremely uncomfortable questions about whether 1984 was actually a warning or preconditioning, aka grooming.
I understand no one here likes Elon. But does it mean we find justifications for our collective bias in everything his companies do?
Why do you put the onus on everyone else to make excuses? It sounds very entitled.
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This would allow you to throw a flock camera up literally anywhere on earth. If we are being honest, we are probably only a couple years out from real Orwellian mass surveillance states, totally censored and mined communications, and general purpose compute restricted or made illegal I wouldn't even be surprised. All the incentives lead right to that and we are halfway there in many ways already.
I hate to break it to you, you are already in an "Orwellian mass surveillance state" and just don't realize it, just as the majority of people in the Orwellian mass surveillance state also were not aware of. Case in point, are you aware that the whole 2+2=5 line was a deliberate falsification of a perfectly sound and even healthy statement that Orwell stole and perverted, i.e., 2 + 2 + the people's enthusiasm = 5 ???…
I understand no one here likes Elon. But does it mean we find justifications for our collective bias in everything his companies do?
I like him! :D
Basically I would hate to see HN become Reddit.