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I really hope that this works well. Being able to break the comcast/att/verizon effective monopolies across the USA would (hopefully) have great positive effec
by bloopernova 9y ago
I really hope that this works well.
Being able to break the comcast/att/verizon effective monopolies across the USA would (hopefully) have great positive effects. At least competition would bring prices down for low-latency land-based connections.
Of course, you're swapping control of your internet connection from a "mostly evil" to a "not yet known if evil" corporation.
- btown 9y ago> not yet known if evil A decent heuristic would be whether said corporation manufactures flamethrowers. Wait...
- dustinmoorenet 9y agoThey are specifically not flamethrowers.
- nickik 9y agoThat a different company. Just the same Bond villain in control.
- stcredzero 9y agoThere are the good looking Bond villains and the bad looking ones. Obama and Musk are good looking Bond villains. (The former had assassination sky robots, ICBMs, and a military. The latter has rockets, oceangoing spaceship landing pads, and huge enigmatic installations in the middle of the desert.) Putin and Trump are bad looking Bond villains.
- boznz 9y agoI know which ones I'd rather be a henchman for.
- colordrops 9y ago* different company * not flamethrowers * manufactured by a third party sorry, I know you are joking, but I couldn't help myself.
- nickik 9y agoCompetition is not just about price. The capacity of a corporation to be evil depends on alternatives people have. The closer the competition the smaller the 'evilness' that would make people switch. The same company can be perfect in one country and a 'evil' in another depending on the situation.
- mseebach 9y agoCompanies aren't "evil" as such, but they can get complacent when not exposed to sufficient competition. Once SpaceX is a viable competitor, Comcast will probably fairly quickly "forget" that they are evil. I seem to recall people reporting that Comcast is actually just fine in many areas with a second viable provider. With SpaceX, that would be all of them.
- stcredzero 9y agoCompanies aren't "evil" as such, but they can get complacent when not exposed to sufficient competition. Power corrupts. Therefore, power in the market also corrupts.
- greenhouse_gas 9y agoThey'll just turn around, provide better service at lower prices, drive spacex out of the market, and raise them again. They have a lot more money to play with (and their infrastructure is much cheaper to maintain).
- Ajedi32 9y ago"They" meaning... every ISP on the planet? At the same time? Starlink will have the ability to offer coverage globally, even in places where existing ISPs have no infrastructure. Not to mention that that kind of predatory pricing is illegal in many countries.
- jazoom 9y agoBut their potential market is like 1/40 the size.