soooo good that they'll burn up one day and this nonsense can finally end.
investors provide infinite capital to nonsense projects so that the showman can create an endless show that will attract new nonsense capital.
sorry but already in rural morocco they have 200 mbit internet for 20 bucks a month. Yes there are some 6 wheeled vehicles roaming the planet that might really benefit from these 100k satellites. but for 99.9% of everyone else? we're good!
When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber to my farm area, at ~$25/900mbps 10ms.
While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have <.1% the money to spend on such things.
However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.
There's a market for it, think internet on vacation, on ships, trains, planes, and underdeveloped / remote areas (some of which skipped wired internet entirely and just have 3/4/5G).
But you're also showing a lot of bias and ignorance towards Africa and India and their financial means.
> But you're also showing a lot of bias and ignorance towards Africa and India and their financial means.
OMG. I just finally scrolled through all of these replies, and yes! I was extremely dismissive about their financial means by at least one order of magnitude. Solid catch, and I genuinely apologize for my stupidity.
> I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India
Many in Canada have no broadband options. My gf has this because otherwise, no internet access. Even cellphone reception is spotty where she is in rural Canada.
I think in most markets the advantage SpaceX has is it isn't paying huge fees for Spectrum, the frequencies it owns were very cheap. Eg in the USA I think the providers spent nearly $100 Billion on spectrum where SpaceX can compete without that cost.
It's less about India and more about Usanai where urban sprawl is all the rage which makes wiring it impossible… and capitalist-driven-development doesn't help.
I spent last weekend under some of the darkest sky you'll find in the eastern US. Miles from cell service. I had a starlink portable with me and it was nice to get some service and stay in touch, but to watch the sky is to see satellites everywhere.
I've spent a dozen or so weeklong stretches in the last few years completely off grid, only connection being bringing up the inReach once a day. At this point I actually get anxiety at the end of such a trip, knowing that I'm going to be wading through a morass of notifications and slack/email/texts. Doing a once or twice a day sync via starlink didn't really bother me so much when I'm out in the backcountry this last trip.
I'd love to be rid of all of it, but that's not how the world works today.
One cool thing about Starlink is that it can potentially improve latency across the world. In optical fibers the light travels only two thirds as fast due to the index of refraction. But in space you can use a laser to send the data in a straight line in a vacuum.
So, at some point, will our devices connect to their corporate offices in any environment, even without providing access to your network, short of putting it inside a Faraday Cage?
Last time I checked, you couldn't get a public IPv4 through Starlink, let alone a fixed one. This makes it a non-starter as a backup link for self-hosters, a use case it is well suited for.
Surely it’ll be an issue some day for other space activities with all the SpaceX kit up there? I know space is very large :) but surely it’d be hard to scan, calculate and control trajectories of millions of orbiting tiny things when you’re launching rockets and things? A spacex satellite almost crashed into the Chinese space station some years ago and the Chinese had to perform an evasive manoeuvre I believe
Starlink is going to become a phone carrier that doesn’t have to pay for pole or tower access. This is the real story, so long att, verizon, and T-Mobile. Starlink is going to beat them on price and availability. Just think, no international calling fees or hassle and cheaper mobile rates.
I think the end game is convenience. Nobody really needs anything more than 200mb/s. If the average person can have their entire family stream their favorite Netflix show at the same time then that’s good enough. “Now lil Jimmy can watch it in the minivan too!”
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 117 ms ] threadinvestors provide infinite capital to nonsense projects so that the showman can create an endless show that will attract new nonsense capital.
sorry but already in rural morocco they have 200 mbit internet for 20 bucks a month. Yes there are some 6 wheeled vehicles roaming the planet that might really benefit from these 100k satellites. but for 99.9% of everyone else? we're good!
make them pre-pay a multi-trillion cleanup and cancer fund for all the toxic waste, not just the launches but pollution burning up in the atmosphere
* https://satellitemap.space/
* https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellit...
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48787042
While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have <.1% the money to spend on such things.
However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.
You just said it yourself:
> Then, only months later, but after years of planning:
Starlink is no replacement for fiber, but even all across the EU and the US there are many places without fiber access.
But you're also showing a lot of bias and ignorance towards Africa and India and their financial means.
OMG. I just finally scrolled through all of these replies, and yes! I was extremely dismissive about their financial means by at least one order of magnitude. Solid catch, and I genuinely apologize for my stupidity.
Many in Canada have no broadband options. My gf has this because otherwise, no internet access. Even cellphone reception is spotty where she is in rural Canada.
I've spent a dozen or so weeklong stretches in the last few years completely off grid, only connection being bringing up the inReach once a day. At this point I actually get anxiety at the end of such a trip, knowing that I'm going to be wading through a morass of notifications and slack/email/texts. Doing a once or twice a day sync via starlink didn't really bother me so much when I'm out in the backcountry this last trip.
I'd love to be rid of all of it, but that's not how the world works today.
I wonder what spacex will be worth when launching satellites is impossible for a couple hundred years.
Elon really needs to drop some cash on Iain Bank’s family, if he’s going to keep stealing ideas/names for his empire.