Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims • Hacker News Board

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#371

Post by seadan83 » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 2:56 AM UTC

inemesitaffia wrote: post #295

seadan83 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of "the road story" is nonsense exactly? Washed out roads and cut off communities AFAIK is obviously an issue. There are only so many helicopters. Are you implying each and every one were able to get water, food, evac all adequately via helicopter in a timely manner? > This offering was requested by people on the ground I agree. Though, I just don't see there being scale behind it. Is it still worthwhile? S…

You aren't dismissing the scale. You're dismissing the entire effort. There's people with pack mules delivering aid. Including starlink receivers. Without collaboration with SpaceX

> There's people with pack mules delivering aid. Including starlink receivers

Do you have evidence that any starlink receivers were delivered via pack mule?

It would be cool if so, if not - potentially urban legend akin to "spitting on vietnam veterans" (I've read there are zero documented cases of that ever happening)

I mean, we know pack mules have been in use, and we know starlink receivers have been delivered. I don't know though that any receivers were on pack mules (it cannot be assumed).

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#372

Post by seadan83 » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 3:12 AM UTC

inemesitaffia wrote: post #369

seadan83 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: "This devices are for the use of first responders and temporary access for local residents. By first responders I don't mean government, not even State/Local." Are we talking in circles? Very early on, I already wrote (is there an important distinction I'm missing?): > Though, in fairness, I do see utility to have a starlink on the back of a pickup truck with a bunch of supplies heading into a small, cut-off, tow…

I've dropped several links

My point was you were recently writing things that I had already far previously agreed with.

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#373

Post by seadan83 » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 3:44 AM UTC

inemesitaffia wrote: post #368

seadan83 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, that does not answer either question.

I've seen people distributing it. Like this https://x.com/TheShawnHendrix/status/1844812943529254942 https://x.com/WorldMobileTeam/status/1844858574737961241 https://x.com/SawyerMerritt/status/1843039646235635868 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/184120713742013254 https://x.com/DrPhil/status/1843840218614640687 https://x.com/Unitedcajunnavy/status/1843985998721524222 And of course, there's FEMA

The musk link gave a "please retry", I was unable to read it.

Some of the links felt a bit like puff pieces and none quite helped. The cajun navy link clarified free of service cost to users - but that was not my intended question.

You said the equipment is properly free. To clarify, are you referring to end users, or free to those delivering the equipment to begin with? My impression was the latter. In which case I wanted to know how you knew that, and what exactoy was "many".

My question was not: how many people are using starlink devices for free? My apologies if that seemed like that was the question I was asking. Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant by "it is properly free" (which I interpreted as spaceX giving the equipment away)

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#374

Post by h0l0cube » Tue, Oct 15, 2024, 12:17 AM UTC

webninja wrote: post #362

h0l0cube wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think intention matters here. It’s great for those people who are helped by Mr. Beast, but it’s coming from a place of ego and profit, not charity. Happy for those helped, but it’s still a little unseemly. However, I do think Musk genuinely likes to help people^ (e.g. Puerto Rico and Ukraine), but also I feel his response to the (valid) rejection of his help by the divers in Thailand was ungracious and maybe a litt…

The nice thing about being a billionaire is that you can finally care about other things besides making more money. For a period of time, Musk was the richest man in the world. When they drop to second place or below, they have a tradition of saying “Thank you” to the person that surpassed them.

Where else was my comment posted? It's strange that it's still getting replies and likes.

> you can finally care about other things besides making more money

I think his 'philanthropic' efforts pre-date the point where he was the richest man in the world. But tbf, his philanthropy was always tied to promotion of his various enterprises (e.g., deploying free batteries, solar, satellite internet), so it can't be entirely disentangled from his business interests. In the counterfactual where he just had the shirt on his back, figuratively speaking, he wouldn't give it up for someone more in need.

By my measure, he isn't a giving person, but he's always on the search for win-wins. i.e., how can I help people, and grow my business, and build cool shit. Building cool shit is his core drive, and everything else is incidental. Which kind of explains bad business decisions like buying Twitter. Though he hasn't really done anything 'cool' with that – it's more just his curious plaything.