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Eventually you might be right. But you’re now talking about theoretical future rather than what the literal monetary cost of the service is right now. I say th
by laumars 5y ago
Eventually you might be right. But you’re now talking about theoretical future rather than what the literal monetary cost of the service is right now.
I say that because my point wasn’t to say that Starlink is uneconomical for the poor and always will be. My point was just that the GPs post was factually incorrect because he left off a hugely significant sum (relative to the first month) for the cost of Starlink right now.
The point about privilege only came about after others handwaved that $500 as loose change and I only really made that point to illustrate how ridiculous it was to say “it’s fine to get a payment wrong by half a grand because we’re wealthy”. It just smacks of being out of touch with reality (or perhaps they were just Starlink/Musk fanboys and defending factually incorrect posts if it looks favourably on Starlink?).
My personal opinions of Starlink is that it looks really promising. In fact I nearly signed up 9 months ago myself when I moved house. The kicker was I needed it a available within a week and didn’t really want to run two
service providers. I’m guess given that Starlink is still beta I was asking a little much there. The problem is my current ISP locks me into a 2 year service and as much as I can afford Starlink there’s other things I’d rather spend my money on than paying for two ISPs just for curiosities sake. I’ll probably review that decision when the contract for the current ISP has > 12 months remaining.
I’m sure I’m 5 years time the cost of Starlink will become a lot more attractive to lower income families in the west. Or at least those that might need to depend on it might find it easier to gain access to the service. But I’m skeptical we’ll see the service affordable for most rural communities in Africa, India or South America, to name but a few large regions that could really benefit from such a service. Maybe Musk does have a plan here. He certainly doesn’t owe these people any charity; however it does feel a missed opportunity if some arrangement couldn’t eventually be found.
Anyway, that’s my 2c worth of opinions :)