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Loon’s final flight

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Re: Loon’s final flight

#3

Post by gonehome »

I’m going to say I called this one at least 8 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23419270

Loon is not competitive in a world with Starlink (even without Starlink it seems).

The business didn’t make strategic sense.

I still really liked their original goal of loon for all and the first video they made for it: https://youtu.be/m96tYpEk1Ao

It’s a little sad they had to downsize and give up. I guess Licklider was right to title the original internet paper an “intergalactic computer network”.

Musk started with interplanetary goals and he’ll at least end up with one that covers the earth.

Loon for all started too small.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergalactic_Computer_Network

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Related:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23419880

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25601473

Re: Loon’s final flight

#4

Post by Mistri »

People often make fun of Google/Alphabet for their graveyard of failed initiatives/products. While some of it might be warranted, projects like this—that strive to solve a large, global issue through somewhat charitable actions—are generous and have only increased my respect for the Google/Alphabet/X team. I hope they don't get flamed for this, and hopefully some of their research and donation funds can live on and solve the issue that Loon originally intended to one day.

Re: Loon’s final flight

#5

Post by laverya »

Given that Starlink will probably solve the same set of problems within a few years (that being access to internet worldwide in areas with minimal infrastructure) this isn't too much of a surprise to me.

Re: Loon’s final flight

#8

Post by deanCommie »

>...the road to commercial viability has proven much longer and riskier than hoped. So we’ve made the difficult decision to close down Loon.

I don't really understand - wasn't the whole premise of Google X and their "Other Bets" that "Google has deep pockets. Let's use this to explore radically big ideas, that are ahead of their time, and let the world catch up to them?"

Bringing "abundant, affordable Internet access, not just to the next billion, but to the last billion" is clearly an investment. You bring them the internet. You spur them to achieve great things. Then you reap the financial rewards.

But that's not a 10-year plan, that's a 20-50-100 year plan. But, there's no reason to think that Google couldn't think like a 20-50-100 year company if they tried.

So what happened? Did they really think that they were going to make money from the poorest 1B people on the planet BEFORE they brought them ubiquitous internet and helped them use that internet to improve their quality of life?

Re: Loon’s final flight

#9

Post by gkoberger »

Hey, 9 years is a pretty good run for any product, especially a ambitious one with no clear revenue model. And the shuttering is paired with a $10M donation to continue the support of the mission.

I know Google gets hate for shutting things down, but they have hundreds of products – I can't think of any other tech company with such a wide range of products. They make bets, and with bets comes a certain amount of failure. I'd guess they have a better "success" rate than, say, YC.

(Ugh, I hate defending Google, but alas)

Re: Loon’s final flight

#10

Post by MattGaiser »

deanCommie wrote: post #8

>...the road to commercial viability has proven much longer and riskier than hoped. So we’ve made the difficult decision to close down Loon. I don't really understand - wasn't the whole premise of Google X and their "Other Bets" that "Google has deep pockets. Let's use this to explore radically big ideas, that are ahead of their time, and let the world catch up to them?" Bringing "abundant, affordable Internet access…

I suspect that Starlink will render it unneeded.
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