3 ms·
> So are the early adopters subsidizing the masses down the line? "Subsidizing"? No, they're paying for a service. It may or may not get cheaper over time... b
by gpm 6y ago
> So are the early adopters subsidizing the masses down the line?
"Subsidizing"? No, they're paying for a service. It may or may not get cheaper over time... but that's rather irrelevant. SpaceX isn't a charity, they are in this to make money. It's also not like SpaceX is making a ton of money off of the early adopters. The satellite dish almost certainly costs the vast majority of those 600 dollars to produce, and the $100/mo service fees from the small set of early adopters aren't going to pay for the satellites and launches any time soon.
> the encryption policy
They don't prevent you from encrypting your traffic... just like any other ISP. What more do you want?
I don't know if they further encrypt traffic inside their network, but I rather assume not because that would be rather pointless. The traffic you send out should be considered more or less public because the internet will send it to malicious third parties regardless of what SpaceX does to it, see all the BGP highjacking attacks that have taken place for instance. SpaceX is obviously unable to encrypt things once they're out of their network into the internet at large... that's just not how the internet works.
> The Privacy policy
Is quite good for an ISP really https://www.starlink.com/legal/privacy-policy https://www.starlink.com/legal/privacy-policy
- CrazyStat 6y agoEstimates for the satellite dish from people in the industry are well over $1000 (see e.g. [1] https://spacenews.com/news-analysis-spacex-has-a-lot-riding-on-starlinks-499-ufo-on-a-stick/ https://spacenews.com/news-analysis-spacex-has-a-lot-riding-...) Unless SpaceX has made a huge unannounced breakthrough in phased arrays they're actually taking large losses on the up-front cost at this point.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kortilla 6y agoDead industry projects incompetence onto disruptive newcomer, news at 10. More seriously, the phased array antennas seem to be a big part of Starlink’s innovation. Launching tons of satellites cheaply by itself isn’t a super protected moat because if they block competitors from using the launch platform at a reasonable price, they risk antitrust action.
- ianai 6y agoI don't see antitrust legislation being a real factor to anyone. Several companies have gone trillion dollar market valuation and several decades without such action. Even if Microsoft had a crystal ball of the future legislation when they were starting up they probably wouldn't have changed a thing. Antitrust in modern history is a thing without teeth when used and almost never used. (I say this as someone who 100% wants market regulation that actually reinforces the natural market efficiencies - including sane, forceful antitrust legislation.)
- kortilla 6y ago> don't see antitrust legislation being a real factor to anyone. You’ll suddenly see it change when it’s a powerful company (Amazon) upset that they get boxed out of the only US launch platform.
- samstave 6y agoThey should buy Ubiquity and build extant mesh networks...
- samstave 6y ago>*SpaceX isn't a charity, they are in this to make money.* Exactly - but what are the EXACT revenue streams they expect? How are they going to make money off the largest continent on the planet; Africa which also has the poorest population on the planet?