Yes, this is part of why launching them in the first place was highly controversial.
We do (imo) need something to cover rural places around the world where running copper/fiber will never be feasible, but this specific plan just isn’t it.
Ignoring the whole Elon being involved spoiler effect, there’s the waste of launching satellites that just burn up in a few years. Apparently the service itself is/was also not that great. He overstated the ping problem being overcome and he overstated the upload and download speeds. He even started charging people some additional fee for bandwidth a couple years (?) or so back after trying to play the whole “Comcast sucks, right?!” angle. Then he just became the owner of a shittier ISP.
Like most, or all, of these would-be future-oriented tech bro endeavors, they’re hampered by contemporary thinking. Ie they have to be focused on profit-making whether that be from some sort of scam involving EV energy credits or overpriced, shittier satellite internet. If Starlink somehow overcame the atrocious waste from the low orbit satellites, wasn’t privately owned, and wasn’t restrictively expensive (I think it’s like $100/month which is double what I pay for gigabit up/down fiber… in the US. And my internet is overpriced compared to worldwide prices (America! Fuck…yeah?). There’s also an upfront equipment cost for the receiver. I think that’s like $200. I looked into this several years back when he was launching it because it’s interesting to me as a nerd, even though Elon is a clown) then maybe it could be useful.
But that kind of eliminates the entire project as it currently exists… still waiting on the weirdo tech bros to figure out they’ll never get “Star Trek” future tech cool shit without dumping the profit motivations that currently exist. If they actually paid attention to the show (and yes, media, pop culture, soyfacing, etc. whatever) they’d see that capitalism and profit seeking is the thing limiting humanity, but, then again, that assumes they actually give a shit about progressing humanity and considering many of the Musk-clones are obsessed with stuff like EVs but reject stuff like mass transit… I don’t think they’re being very serious. They just want the illusion of futuristic shit that they can then overcharge for. Actual problems like climate change are just used cynically to attract libs and those who may actually care about the world and not burning it up. None of this shit can be solved under a capitalist economy, but why would one of the richest pieces of dogshit on earth want to acknowledge or change that? Hmm.
If we’re speaking about urban areas or otherwise places with existing cellular infrastructure, then it only has some advantages as far as potentially overcoming signal attenuation (or just straight up blocking) in remote and/or mountainous regions. Eg the Rocky Mountains and thousands of other locations across the world. If you ever go to the Rockies, as soon as you really enter those valleys with paved roads all cell signals go poof and so does regular radio (both rely on radio transmission after all). Satellite radio still works though because it’s coming from, well, space. So unless you have a physical barrier above you like inside of a tunnel, you should get signal anywhere on earth’s surface as long as you can somehow reach a satellite’s signal.
It also requires far less terrestrial infrastructure (I think all you need is the receiver?). Building those towers for 4G, etc. obviously takes resources and the further into the wilderness you go the more expensive and impractical it becomes. You also have to run electricity to the towers or maintain stand alone generators… it can be extremely expensive and wasteful, as you might imagine. It’s also impractical and that means “it ain’t happening” under capitalism. No corporation will spend the resources just to ensure 10 families get 5G on their phone. And obviously the government has no interest in this either, although perhaps… they should? The ISPs did get an unimaginable amount, in the billions of dollars, to expand fiber and basically get internet into the homes of every single American… and they took that money like 15-20 years ago (I forget the exact year now) and… didn’t do jack shit basically. Verizon’s fiber network has hardly expanded in the Northeast US since like 2010-ish. Same across the country. It expands sometimes, in select areas, but yeah. Certainly not to the degree they were literally paid to do. And of course they kept that money and of course nothing ever happened from it and of course they said they need more money if people want fiber to every (practical) home. Gotta love America…
Better access to internet literally anywhere (once all the satellites are launched to cover the earth’s surface) is the selling point, something that cell tower technology struggles to provide. It also could potentially reduce costs (no infrastructure requirements which is massive) for developing nations. The theoretical possibilities and positive potential in something that fills the niche that Starlink promised is honestly really cool and something worth pursuing, but not by private corporations. Because if Starlink (so, Elon…) was successful in this endeavor, they would own access to the link between every person in countries that use it and the rest of the world. They could shut it off, spy on it, charge astronomical rates… not good stuff. I do believe it’s worthwhile though for humanity to keep trying to solve this issue, but do it in a responsible way, one that ideally doesn’t burn satellites up every few years…? And isn’t privately owned, especially by one single dumbass.
Yes, this is part of why launching them in the first place was highly controversial.
We do (imo) need something to cover rural places around the world where running copper/fiber will never be feasible, but this specific plan just isn’t it.
Ignoring the whole Elon being involved spoiler effect, there’s the waste of launching satellites that just burn up in a few years. Apparently the service itself is/was also not that great. He overstated the ping problem being overcome and he overstated the upload and download speeds. He even started charging people some additional fee for bandwidth a couple years (?) or so back after trying to play the whole “Comcast sucks, right?!” angle. Then he just became the owner of a shittier ISP.
Like most, or all, of these would-be future-oriented tech bro endeavors, they’re hampered by contemporary thinking. Ie they have to be focused on profit-making whether that be from some sort of scam involving EV energy credits or overpriced, shittier satellite internet. If Starlink somehow overcame the atrocious waste from the low orbit satellites, wasn’t privately owned, and wasn’t restrictively expensive (I think it’s like $100/month which is double what I pay for gigabit up/down fiber… in the US. And my internet is overpriced compared to worldwide prices (America! Fuck…yeah?). There’s also an upfront equipment cost for the receiver. I think that’s like $200. I looked into this several years back when he was launching it because it’s interesting to me as a nerd, even though Elon is a clown) then maybe it could be useful.
But that kind of eliminates the entire project as it currently exists… still waiting on the weirdo tech bros to figure out they’ll never get “Star Trek” future tech cool shit without dumping the profit motivations that currently exist. If they actually paid attention to the show (and yes, media, pop culture, soyfacing, etc. whatever) they’d see that capitalism and profit seeking is the thing limiting humanity, but, then again, that assumes they actually give a shit about progressing humanity and considering many of the Musk-clones are obsessed with stuff like EVs but reject stuff like mass transit… I don’t think they’re being very serious. They just want the illusion of futuristic shit that they can then overcharge for. Actual problems like climate change are just used cynically to attract libs and those who may actually care about the world and not burning it up. None of this shit can be solved under a capitalist economy, but why would one of the richest pieces of dogshit on earth want to acknowledge or change that? Hmm.
I still don’t understand what Starlink does over 5G for example, or even 4G
If we’re speaking about urban areas or otherwise places with existing cellular infrastructure, then it only has some advantages as far as potentially overcoming signal attenuation (or just straight up blocking) in remote and/or mountainous regions. Eg the Rocky Mountains and thousands of other locations across the world. If you ever go to the Rockies, as soon as you really enter those valleys with paved roads all cell signals go poof and so does regular radio (both rely on radio transmission after all). Satellite radio still works though because it’s coming from, well, space. So unless you have a physical barrier above you like inside of a tunnel, you should get signal anywhere on earth’s surface as long as you can somehow reach a satellite’s signal.
It also requires far less terrestrial infrastructure (I think all you need is the receiver?). Building those towers for 4G, etc. obviously takes resources and the further into the wilderness you go the more expensive and impractical it becomes. You also have to run electricity to the towers or maintain stand alone generators… it can be extremely expensive and wasteful, as you might imagine. It’s also impractical and that means “it ain’t happening” under capitalism. No corporation will spend the resources just to ensure 10 families get 5G on their phone. And obviously the government has no interest in this either, although perhaps… they should? The ISPs did get an unimaginable amount, in the billions of dollars, to expand fiber and basically get internet into the homes of every single American… and they took that money like 15-20 years ago (I forget the exact year now) and… didn’t do jack shit basically. Verizon’s fiber network has hardly expanded in the Northeast US since like 2010-ish. Same across the country. It expands sometimes, in select areas, but yeah. Certainly not to the degree they were literally paid to do. And of course they kept that money and of course nothing ever happened from it and of course they said they need more money if people want fiber to every (practical) home. Gotta love America…
Better access to internet literally anywhere (once all the satellites are launched to cover the earth’s surface) is the selling point, something that cell tower technology struggles to provide. It also could potentially reduce costs (no infrastructure requirements which is massive) for developing nations. The theoretical possibilities and positive potential in something that fills the niche that Starlink promised is honestly really cool and something worth pursuing, but not by private corporations. Because if Starlink (so, Elon…) was successful in this endeavor, they would own access to the link between every person in countries that use it and the rest of the world. They could shut it off, spy on it, charge astronomical rates… not good stuff. I do believe it’s worthwhile though for humanity to keep trying to solve this issue, but do it in a responsible way, one that ideally doesn’t burn satellites up every few years…? And isn’t privately owned, especially by one single dumbass.
Lines Musk’s pockets.