Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow • Hacker News Board

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#141

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 4:43 PM UTC

the_other wrote: post #138

theultdev wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digital colonialism... you can't be serious? You really think giving villages or tribes with limited or no internet service is a bad thing? There were quite a few tribes given Starlink to fix their school computers so their children could get a proper education. You shoved in a lot of other nonsense in there too, but I'd thought I'd call out the most ridiculous first. > Starlink was intentionally curtailed during the…

> Digital colonialism... you can't be serious? You really think giving villages or tribes with limited or no internet service is a bad thing? Prior to the 20th century, my hazy memory says more like ~17th, the Emperor of China or his emissaries would give lavish gifts to other nations. It worked like a "soft colonialism". Later they would expect favourable deals, trades, taxes, military support and so on. [0] Faceboo…

[deleted]

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#142

Post by teg4n_ » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 4:45 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #60

drannex wrote: post #6

I don't trust a single thing he says at this point without evidence, I just can't possibly see it as breakeven without it, which we likely won't receive as they are a private corp.

I’m not a huge Musk fan, but his shortcoming seems to be more having unreasonable projections about the future. I’m not aware of him lying about things in the present.

“funding secured” was him lying about the present

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#143

Post by rootusrootus » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 4:46 PM UTC

theultdev wrote: post #137

Atreiden wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/elon-musk-funding-secur...

Then a jury ruled in Musk's favor, right? https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/03/cars/musk-tesla-tweet-lawsuit... The end result is left out every time the "court finds" articles are linked. The jury found the opposite, which is what actually matters.

Well, a jury also ruled that his pedo comments were totally okay, so I don't know if I'd use that as a metric for what constitutes truth.

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#144

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 4:47 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #90

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Starlink is good for the world. It wasn't good for Ukraine when Musk pulled the plug on them.

Which is overshadowed drastically - 1,000 to 1 at least - by the good Starlink has done for Ukraine. That's about the weakest straw argument I've seen against Starlink. Musk's SpaceX is the only reason Ukraine has been able to maintain its Internet infrastructure throughout the war. It would have been a communications disaster otherwise, particularly for all non-military (NATO would have done its best to provide patc…

Maybe, but he also interfered in a rather large Ukrainian operation to Russia's benefit.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/world/europe/elon-musk-uk...

> Elon Musk foiled an attack on Russia’s Black Sea fleet last year

> Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, accused Mr. Musk of enabling Russian aggression. Because of Mr. Musk’s decision, “civilians, children are being killed,” he wrote on X on Thursday. “This is the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego.”

> a SpaceX executive said that Starlink had taken steps to curtail Ukraine’s use of the technology to control drones, infuriating Ukrainian officials.

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#145

Post by theultdev » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 4:49 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #143

theultdev wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then a jury ruled in Musk's favor, right? https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/03/cars/musk-tesla-tweet-lawsuit... The end result is left out every time the "court finds" articles are linked. The jury found the opposite, which is what actually matters.

Well, a jury also ruled that his pedo comments were totally okay, so I don't know if I'd use that as a metric for what constitutes truth.

Well, courts have also persecuted and jailed innocent people so if you don't trust what a jury of your peers say you should also have a hard time trusting what a "court finds".

Do you agree with that logic or do you trust the courts over your peers?

(ie. what "metric" would you use "for what constitutes truth"?)

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#146

Post by rayiner » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 4:52 PM UTC

teg4n_ wrote: post #142

rayiner wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not a huge Musk fan, but his shortcoming seems to be more having unreasonable projections about the future. I’m not aware of him lying about things in the present.

“funding secured” was him lying about the present

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/03/cars/musk-tesla-tweet-lawsuit...

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#147

Post by jauntywundrkind » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 4:53 PM UTC

Whomever and whatever is what % of constituents in the user-base: it was charging governments and large operators lots of money that was going to fill the coffers.

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#148

Post by snapplebobapple » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 4:55 PM UTC

webkike wrote: post #32

next_xibalba wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter to you? I am fascinated by people who have such strong opinions about Musk, particularly on the negative side. The vast majority have never met him and, if they were honest, have probably been positively impacted by him (or not at all). Personally, I hope it’s true. Starlink is good for the world.

I haven’t met him, but he has bought out my favorite social media website solely so he can insert his insipid opinions and comments, so I think the negative reactions are warranted. Why do people always talk about needing to meet a guy to have an opinion on them? I haven’t met Dick Cheney either

I don't think that's the main reason he bought it. It looks to me like he's trying to create a knockoff of the baidu app for the non chinese language sphere where one can conduct their whole life through the app (think twitter + whatsapp/telegram/signal/teams + your banking + online purchases + delivery). If he pulls it off he's going to be a lot richer regardless of the up front pain point of far leftie aversion to freedom of speech kneecapping legacy revenue streams in the short to medium term.

As with everything Elon does, one should wait and see because he has had decent success turning things that seemed stupid money pits at the time (i.e. electric cars and rockets) into legitimate companies disrupting what was thought to be entrenched markets. Also, to my knowledge he has never pulled share structure Bullshit in his companies which makes it possible for his shareholders to fire him if enough don't like what he is doing, something I can't say about the other big tech CEOs, and something that deserves respect in its own right regardless of your opinions of anything else the guy has done.

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#149

Post by fragmede » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 4:55 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #38

fdaslkjlkjklj wrote: post #7

For those who don't know, capital expenses are depreciated over their useful lifetime (for StarLink sats, estimated at 5 years) and aren't accounted for by cashflow. Cash flow positive tells you they're not going to go broke, at least until they need more capital expenses (5 years...), which is a milestone, sure. But profit is a better measure of a business's value as a going concern. What happens in 5 years when the…

Starlink also has capex and subsequent opex for ground stations. Even with inter-satellite communications links in the 1.5gen satellites, it needs ground stations and interconnection with backbone operators. It is unclear if, as bad as many terrestrial ISPs are, Starlink has a TAM big enough. It's going to be slower and less reliable than terrestrial wireless, and expanding terrestrial wireless coverage is going to b…

> expanding terrestrial wireless coverage is going to be cheaper for a very large percentage of potential customers.

If that's the case, why has it taken until SpaceX for there to be viable Internet service to many of the rural areas they service? People are replacing 3Mbit DSL links, or even dial up (yes, in 2023, dial-up) service with starlink. terrestrial fiber beats Starlink handily, except where it hasn't been run. Which, even many urban areas still don't have gigabit fiber Internet service available, never mind when suburban or rural areas will get it (if ever). The other part of the addressable market is airplanes and boats/ships, and remote bases like McMurdo in Antarctica. Not sure how you're proposing we run fiber Internet to them.

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#150

Post by TheLoafOfBread » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 4:56 PM UTC

theultdev wrote: post #137

Atreiden wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/elon-musk-funding-secur...

Then a jury ruled in Musk's favor, right? https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/03/cars/musk-tesla-tweet-lawsuit... The end result is left out every time the "court finds" articles are linked. The jury found the opposite, which is what actually matters.

I mean its jury - https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/sep/23