131–140 of 395 posts
Really interesting that Starlink continues to improve the service when they have an absolute monopoly on fast, portable satellite internet.
That's the magic of the free market. Even with no direct rival yet, Starlink innovates like crazy because the threat of competition is always there and consumers demand excellence. Unlike state-granted monopolies, those parasitic structures stagnate and plunder the people.
Regardless of the price and the data, I'd never subscribe to this service due to the owner. I'm looking forward for alternatives from a more neutral vendor
I think they will have enough clients from other parts of the world to make it work. Large areas of my country can't really be covered with wired networks, it's too expensive to make it economically feasible without massive government subsidies, for which there's no money. Starlink has already been used to connect very remote rural schools which previously only had dial-up connectivity (enough to send text email, but…
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Take your pick homie: https://ph.ucla.edu/news-events/news/research-finds-more-14-... https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-documentary... https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hund... This one is a PDF, so warning: https://www.medschool.umaryland.edu/media/som/news/news-logo... So right now, there are nearly 400,000 verifiable deaths due to the cuts of these programs. It's on track to be…
These are hypotheticals / estimates, not verifiable. If the funding cuts were so critical why have other wealthy countries or individuals not stepped in to fund them? Are they all evil too?
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I’m 100% on the same boat. The only competitor I can see is Amazon Leo. Having options is great but they both suck.
As if Bezos is better. Elon has a much higher slope but he’s got a head start to catch up on, before they’re all hunting humans for sport on Ellison’s private island.
I disagree that Bezos & Elon are comparably bad.
Really interesting that Starlink continues to improve the service when they have an absolute monopoly on fast, portable satellite internet.
Regardless of the price and the data, I'd never subscribe to this service due to the owner. I'm looking forward for alternatives from a more neutral vendor
Really interesting that Starlink continues to improve the service when they have an absolute monopoly on fast, portable satellite internet.
Also as has been noted, in some markets they do compete on price: https://restofworld.org/2025/starlink-cheaper-internet-afric...
I'm actually a huge fan of "unlimited slow speeds" as a falloff, instead of a cliff. Aside from the fact it allows you to work with Starlink to buy more fast speed, it also allows core stuff to continue to function (e.g. basic notifications, non-streaming web traffic, etc).
> I'm actually a huge fan of "unlimited slow speeds" as a falloff, instead of a cliff. When on cellular, I like to call that "HN-only mode." It is one of the few web properties that is entirely usable at 2G speeds.
Really interesting that Starlink continues to improve the service when they have an absolute monopoly on fast, portable satellite internet.