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Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

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Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#71
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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…

i mean, its sort of offtopic since many American readers here might not know about it, but the free internet scheme in India was sort of a dismal failure

their effort was called: "internet.org" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet.org#Net_neutrality_cr...

it basically just dumped unmoderated facebook on most of India.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/25/facebook-india-hat...

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#72
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.

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.

Musk has gone to substantial lengths to undermine his own credibility and you wonder why people question his statements? It's not even a 'strong opinion' at this point, it's just reality: Musk can be trusted for what he says. It may be true, it may not be true. It may be technically true. But you'll never know until you've seen the evidence with your own eyes.

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#73
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.

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.

Truth in tech matters to this audience, at least to the engineers. Musk had repeatedly overpromised and undelivered ("full self-driving"), made preposterous claims (2019: Tesla Semi convoy FSD is "something we can do today"), and engaged in fraudulent behavior (SolarCity or the "funding secured" tweet).

You can love him because rockets, EVs, and enormous satellite constellations are pretty cool, but you'd be a fool to trust him.

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#74
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.

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.

not him. but I just can't trust any words of him since many years ago without any hard proof. as for his impacts, I spent the last 20 minutes thinking what has he done that positively impact me and found nothing.

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#75
post #56
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They might be able to sustain just simply via country contracts using it as a breakglass in the event of a telecommunications attack. I'm also seeing more commercial entities looking at it simply as a backup.

There are a lot of terrestrial options for backup links: optical, microwave, fixed 5G. Generally any terrestrial link, wired or wireless, will be both higher-capacity and more reliable.

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#76
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 examples: He's accelerated the switch to electric cars. He's made transport to space a lot cheaper, saving a lot of taxpayer's money.

He didn't create Tesla, though I'll grant him some credit for creating a combination of product and hype that made for a popular EV. Gwynne gets all the credit for SpaceX IMO. Elon gets credit for letting her succeed.

Tesla was an idea. The Tesla you see today is his doing. Eberhard would have ended up like Wework without the Newmann payout.

Remember the Tesla deathwatch blog?

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#77
post #38

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…

You only need downlinks to backbones if the internet is terrestrial. Who will be the first to offer the LEO datacenter?

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#78
post #32

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

> he has bought out my favorite social media websites solely so he can insert his insipid opinions and comments

Can you share a link that documents him saying this? Every statement I've heard is something to the effect of "to preserve a space for free speech." If you can't produce evidence, you're assuming intent. That's your bias, and it isn't rooted in reality.

> Why do people always talk about needing to meet a guy to have an opinion on them?

I think its more a question of the degree to which people care. Dick Cheney was integral in launching wars that spent trillions and killed millions. Compare that to Musk who is probably more responsible than any other single person for reviving both the electrification of transport and the reviving of space exploration. All via companies that you're perfectly able to completely ignore. Meanwhile, Cheney used public treasure to mire the U.S. in foreverwars. Do these two people seem even remotely equivalent to you? Do both seem worthy of your very strong opinions?

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#79
post #3

I can’t understate how revolutionary this technology is for those outside of dense urban center. It has even been well utilized by Ukraine in the war and is jamming resistant.

Unless the jamming is being performed by an anxious and needy tech mogul after a phone call with a dictator.

Yeah - this is why critical military infrastructure should not depend on the private sector.

Re: Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow

#80
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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…

I certainly wouldn't argue that providing internet to anyone is a bad thing, and I'd love to see as much of the world as possible have access.

However, I do think it's a little comical that in doing so he is enabling the spread of the "woke mind virus" to new regions and people. So, it's conceivable that he will eventually think it was a bad thing.

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