8 ms·

This seems on par with the process - SpaceX submits a proposal that is open for public scrutiny, and Amazon, which has the incentives to do so, submits feedback

• literallyaduck 5y ago
  This seems on par with the process - Amazon submits feedback and the general public who are sick of Amazon's practices submit feedback via pitchforks and torches. We are within our rights to call out Amazon before, after and during FCC review.
• kjksf 5y ago
  You fail to make a distinction between following a process and abusing a process. Amazon is clearly abusing the process. It's clear to everyone and their mothers that Amazon is abusing the process. Find me one comment that says "yeah, Amazon is totally right about that and SpaceX should not get the permits they are asking for". Abusing a process warrants a bit different response than "oh well, the rules can be abused so it's just fine for Amazon to abuse them". What makes it even worse is that Bezos publicly complained that this kind of abuse of process is delaying progress in space. It's on tape. You can watch it. To me this is evil: knowing that some things are bad and doing them anyway when it benefits you.
  • lostlogin 5y ago
    Another way of looking at this - if you can defend against the most motivated detractor, it seems unlikely there are holes in your plan.
    • bpodgursky 5y ago
      Except by current Blue Origin precedent, the next step is to sue the FCC as soon as the FCC rules against them. Litigators with deep pockets can absolutely abuse the system.
    • tw04 5y ago
      Being able to defend against them doesn't really matter when their end goal is to tie you up in court long enough for them to be able to actually provide a tangible alternative. Oh, you've got first-mover advantage? How about I force you into court for the next 6 years while I build a competing product?
  • amelius 5y ago
    Yeah, seeking the limits of the law. When a human does it, we typically call them an asshole. However, when a company does it, it's totally fine.
    • blamestross 5y ago
      It is almost like the primary value provided by a company is of being a social obfuscation layer to avoid moral responsibilities that would be obvious if it was replaced with an individual.
      • smichel17 5y ago
        > social obfuscation layer A veil, if you will
        • amelius 5y ago
          distortion field
    • tablespoon 5y ago
      > Yeah, seeking the limits of the law. When a human does it, we typically call them an asshole. However, when a company does it, it's totally fine. The ideological campaign to turn pure greed into a moral virtue has been far more successful for businesses than for individuals. Probably because the millenniums of moral thought that condemn individual greed is a tough thing to displace, and human moral intuitions are less intuitive to apply to a composite entity like a business.
      • Mountain_Skies 5y ago
        Big businesses, especially corporations, are artificial persons. This is completely unnatural and we as human have yet to figure out how to handle dealing with such "persons". I suspect that if they were to take actual human form, in much of the world they would be driven out of town and told never to return.
    • 5y ago
  • AnssiH 5y ago
    > It's clear to everyone and their mothers that Amazon is abusing the process. Not to me. SpaceX certainly claims so, but they are hardly impartial and I'm not familiar enough with FCC regs to make that judgement myself.
    • bogomipz 5y ago
      I think the OP may have be referring to the fact that Amazon also recently both filed lawsuit against the DOD for awarding the JEDI project to Microsoft[1] and Blue Origin filed a protest against the G.A.O. for awarding the lunar landing contract to SpaceX[2]. I think when take all 3 of these in the aggregate, it starts to look a bit like bad faith on the part of Bezos and Amazon. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/07/06/pentagon-scraps-microsofts-10-billion-cloud-computing-deal-after-lawsuit-from-amazon https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/07/06/pentagon-sc... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/science/spacex-moon-blue-origin.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/science/spacex-moon-blue-...
      • verdverm 5y ago
        Don't forget BO sued NASA after losing the GAO decision, so four recent incidents
    • DisjointedHunt 5y ago
      You don't need to be familiar with FCC regs, its a matter of common sense. Say you buy a house somewhere and submit an application to the city to modify the kitchen or something. Your neighbor objects even though it is none of their business what your dealings with the city council on official matters related to your property are. Clearly , you are "hardly impartial", now?
    • whoknowswhat11 5y ago
      Wow - HN folks just go for this garbage? Lots of good quotes from the pushback " In fact, Amazon has not had a single meeting with the Commission this year about how it intends to resolve the Commission’s interference or safety concerns, but it has had 15 meetings in that same span just about SpaceX. While Amazon has waited 15 months to explain how its system works, it has lodged objections to SpaceX on average about every 16 days this year." So you have one company actually launching and serving customers, and another who has done nothing, not even updating FCC on its plans in 15 months! And then every 16 days is lodging objections? Let me understand this clearly - is it the FCC jobs to protect Amazon from being slow, or to advance consumer access to internet and communications? Because we should be pushing HARD for the folks actually delivering.
  • tenpies 5y ago
    > Amazon is clearly abusing the process. It's not clear to me. I'm actually quite worried about SpaceX's increasing presence in space put simply because Musk has shown very little care for risk - especially if it's to someone other than him (e.g. testing "self-driving" on public roads, showing exceedingly lack of QA and attention to detail in most products, and generally bringing the "move fast and break things" mantra into applications that are life and death). For example, SpaceX Starlink satelites (just Starlink) account for over half of close encounters and are expected to account for 90% of close encounters in the future. [1] It only takes one major screw up there to completely ground the human race for the foreseeable future. So how much do you trust SpaceX to not screw over humanity by setting of a Kessler effect? I don't at all, so in that regard I'm all for SpaceX facing the highest level of scrutiny in all things because I do not consider them a trustworthy enterprise. --- [1] https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellite-collision-alerts-on-the-rise https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellite-collision-al...
    • dd36 5y ago
      All of his companies are about reducing risk to humanity.
    • Dylan16807 5y ago
      They're too low for debris to stay up.
      • al3xandre 5y ago
        This. A thousand time. People need to understand this.
        • inglor_cz 5y ago
          People see ISS staying up in similar height for decades and do not realize that it actually needs engines to pull itself back up after it inevitably loses altitude to atmospheric drag.
    • inglor_cz 5y ago
  • lanevorockz 5y ago
    We got used to companies abusing processes and not being punished. Just look at how all Big Tech companies systematically break laws and happily pays the fines for these crimes.
    • amarant 5y ago
      But if they pay the fine, haven't they been punished? Whether punishment was sufficient is a different question.
      • KozmoNau7 5y ago
        Part of the social contract of punishment, is that you stop doing the thing you got punished for.
      • ivalm 5y ago
        We live in a society where it is important that people follow the spirit of the social contract. Acting in bad faith is bad even if you pay your punishment or if the action uses a loophole keeping you on the right side of the law. The world is too complex to fully codify in rules and punishments, abusing loopholes (or taking punishment as cost of business) is still reprehensible. I do agree we should try to increase punishment/close loopholes when possible, it’s just always will be a losing battle.
      • joquarky 5y ago
        When they look at fines as just the cost of doing business, we are failing to resolve the problem.
  • l33t2328 5y ago
    Okay I’ll bite. Amazon is totally right about that and SpaceX should not get the permits they are asking for. They have received unfair advantages from the government, and to levy those advantages to get more advantages is improper.
  • DisjointedHunt 5y ago
    The bigger point here is that this isn't even "using" the process. Amazon is free to submit comments when the proposal is open to public comment. They have chosen to interject themselves into the internal responsibility of a Government Agency by attempting to influence a favorable decision by submitting an unsolicited opinion on internal agency process, trying to force officials to do their jobs in the specific way that Amazon wants them to. This is the part that is wrong. The responsibility of the agency is to review these applications, not to babysit and pander to the whims and fancies of Amazon because they feel they're important enough to be listened to as part of internal agency deliberations. Amazon is free to submit their own proposals and COMPETE with Spacex. What they're doing here is an attempt to STIFLE COMPETITION by levying additional undue burden on the government agency involved in the process of reviewing their competitors submissions with the hope that this additional burden slows down the process significantly.
• stefan_ 5y ago
  Is there a comment you wanted to make? Because yes, the process is perfectly well understood. This is about the merits.
• relativ575 5y ago
  This isn't on par with the process. Amazon don't want Spacex's application to even reach the public's commenting phase. From the article: > Amazon's request would prevent the commission from seeking public comment on SpaceX's application, SpaceX said. "The commission should recognize this gambit for the obstructionist tactic that it is, reject Amazon's request, and quickly put the amendment out for public comment," SpaceX said. The public-comment process will allow "any issues [to] be fully vetted," SpaceX said.
• mc32 5y ago
  And they are establishing a pattern with this and previously JEDI. At some point, someone has to call their nonsense and blacklist them from gov't procurement for their bad-faith approach.