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Amazon's Satellite Project Will Cost Billions, Jeff Bezos Says

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Re: Amazon's Satellite Project Will Cost Billions, Jeff Bezos Says

#61
post #50

Seriously, let’s spend billions in renewable investment and government lobbying to fix the climate crisis. Wow, this is getting silly. Broadband internet is just not a fundamental human need, a habitable planet is.

It doesn't do any good to pick an unrelated endeavor and say the resources would be better spent on a worthier cause instead. Private spending on space, or public funding of arts and culture, or humanitarian aid, etc. is not blocking us from tackling global warming. If anything, such tangential criticisms are a distraction. Advocate for measures that would help, such as a carbon price and dividend, instead of attacki…

It doesn't do any good to pick an unrelated endeavor and say the resources would be better spent on a worthier cause instead.

In theory that all sounds fine, however; Wouldn't you say it's time to set some priorities?

“It’s multiple billions of dollars of capex. Amazon is a large enough company now that we need to be doing things that, if they work, can actually move the needle."

Sure, advocating and not criticizing sounds good; Although, what madness and what a waste of time and money. It sounds like all we can hope for is Amazon introduces a self-imposed carbon tax.

Re: Amazon's Satellite Project Will Cost Billions, Jeff Bezos Says

#62
post #46

Seriously, let’s spend billions in renewable investment and government lobbying to fix the climate crisis. Wow, this is getting silly. Broadband internet is just not a fundamental human need, a habitable planet is.

Commodity residential broadband makes telecommuting possible. Reducing the influence of population density on capacity benefits folks like me that try to telecommute from rural areas.

I'd be really surprised if the most polluting countries in the world don't have access to broadband?

Re: Amazon's Satellite Project Will Cost Billions, Jeff Bezos Says

#63
post #3

I assume there are a finite number of these swarms that we can deploy in LEO, both in economic terms as well as dedicating space and spectrum? I’ve heard of three companies now that want to achieve this. I’m not sure if there’s anything particularly distinctive about one versus the other, other than SpaceX is the only one with the proven launch capacity to bring that much mass to orbit. I have a lot less faith in Bez…

Amazon shareholders do not earn a dividend. SpaceX is not public, but rather would enrich a much smaller set of investors (and particularly Musk). What’s your point?

My point was that when companies look for literal moonshots to keep finding decent uses for their money, it’s usually not long after that the dividends start be paid out.

That is to say, by the time their Starlink-esque network would be generating revenue, odds are good AMZN is paying a dividend.

Re: Amazon's Satellite Project Will Cost Billions, Jeff Bezos Says

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bringing several Mbps internet to the farthest most unreachable corners of the earth, economically enough for low income people to use, is a net social good. you would understand if you had ever worked in geostationary satellite based internet access and seen how costly it is.

I'm not disagreeing with that, but let's talk about priorities. If you're living in some of the farthest most unreachable corners of the earth, you;re life is probably more and more in-danger from the threats of climate change through drought, fires etc. Yet another plan to launch thousands of satellites into orbit so it's easier to order more junk from Amazon is a low priority for those people I'm afraid.

Having worked in developing nation telecom - you might be surprised. Look at the % of people with HSPA+ or LTE data on their $60-80 (in local currency equivalent) Android phones in the eight largest cities in Afghanistan. Look at the growth of developing-nation specialist mobile phone carriers such as south africa's MTN expanding into rural areas of underdeveloped African countries.

It's not like the satellites are going to serve a walled garden Amazon internet, or that their main purpose will be to go to amazon.com and buy products. I'd be very surprised if the service didn't resemble a normal ISP in terms of default route out to the Internet for a full routing table.

Re: Amazon's Satellite Project Will Cost Billions, Jeff Bezos Says

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon shareholders do not earn a dividend. SpaceX is not public, but rather would enrich a much smaller set of investors (and particularly Musk). What’s your point?

Fidelity has a biyearly traded SpaceX fund.

Isn't it just a small slice of many things held in a mutual fund? or there is actually pure spaceX fund/vehicle?
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