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Here's hoping people will finally stop propagating the myth that SpaceX had been intentionally shutting off Starlink in Ukraine to blackmail the government into

Here's hoping people will finally stop propagating the myth that SpaceX had been intentionally shutting off Starlink in Ukraine to blackmail the government into paying. All other defense contractors haven't been expected to indefinitely provide services for free, so it was always absurd to see people arguing that SpaceX should do it for free.

aardvarkr 3y ago
The Ukrainians pay spacex for their internet just like every else in the world. They have an internet bill for each terminal that costs the same as it does in the USA. It wasn’t some charitable donation from Musk. Musk was threatening to pull out of Ukraine because he complained it was costing him money and after he got to ride the initial wave of press releases about saving Ukraine he let his politics got in the way of his judgement.
- dmix 3y ago
  It's been well reported SpaceX donated a ton of services to Ukraine early in the war for free. It's discussed in the article posted here? Of course Ukrainians will not all be getting it free. SpaceX was mostly just saving face publicly about not directly working with the military and only doing it for civilian purposes. Which makes a lot of sense from a business perspective as they are a global business operating in plenty of countries. Once the DOD rolls up and offers a bunch of money those dynamics can change.
  - partiallypro 3y ago
    The US paid $15M for terminals and services, and paid 3x the cost of what SpaceX sells them for to general consumers. Musk and SpaceX claimed otherwise but the USAID replied with receipts. https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-spacex-ukraine-starlink-government-funding https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-spacex-ukraine-starli... https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/8/23016670/starlink-spacex-us-government-terminals-funding-usaid https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/8/23016670/starlink-spacex-u... Any "free" service was always to demo the usefulness of the product to the DoD for them eventually to pay through the nose. Musk got flak for his comments because a) it was a half-truth b) he made it very publicly, c) he started promoting Russian government accounts on For You pages, and d) he started echoing Russian sentiments and/or falsehoods about the war. If he had not done any of that he would have still gotten the money and not looked like a fool. No one expected Starlink to lose money on the deal, and they haven't.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - ed25519FUUU 3y ago
      Funny to me that spacex is the only company not allowed to grift the US government war machine.
      - partiallypro 3y ago
        What are you talking about? You do realize you're replying to a thread on the Pentagon giving SpaceX funding, right? Not to mention SpaceX already had pre-existing contracts with the DoD and even has a defense contractor arm dubbed StarShield. Musk only got pushback because he went on a childish tirade (an increasing habit of his) on Twitter and then started pushing opposition narratives.
      - foobarqux 3y ago
        It's amazing that people go from "Musk is not grifting the US government" to "Musk is grifting the government (actually the people of the US) and that is good and right".
        George83728 3y ago
        You're overloading your definitions of "grift", to simultaneously mean dishonest scamming and standard profiteering. SpaceX is a regular for-profit defense contractor. They aren't scamming the government. For anybody aligned with America's foreign policy interests, both of these are a good thing. (And for those who aren't, it's an unmitigated disaster.)
        mardifoufs 3y ago
        Grifting basically just means "people I don't like are making money" at this point. I've seen someone selling industrial tooling being called a grifter.
        foobarqux 3y ago
  - that_guy_iain 3y ago
    > SpaceX was mostly just saving face publicly about not directly working with the military and only doing it for civilian purposes. Which makes a lot of sense from a business perspective as they are a global business operating in plenty of countries. Once the DOD rolls up and offers a bunch of money those dynamics can change. Wasn't the actual issue was that they can't allow their tech to be used with weapons. Ukraine was using it to use drones with explosives attached. Allowing that would have made Starlink something controlled under the weapons export laws. Therefore, they can't allow it. Or was that another of the many things with Starlink and Ukraine?
    - lumost 3y ago
      DOD paying for services might indicate that that ship has sailed and spacex is fine with it. The tech would have been considered “dual-use” eventually. Dual-use tech has complex export laws. Having the DoD as an invested partner will help fund future projects/provide financial stability to spacex generally.
      - dotnet00 3y ago
        It can alternatively mean that the DoD is now satisfied with SpaceX's opposition to strapping Starlink to drones and is willing to pay them as a result.
        ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        why would the DoD be satisfied with the opposition? and why would Starlink be okay with it just because they got paid? It sounds like you're saying they never had any actual morals or principles except getting more money
        dotnet00 3y ago
        The DoD would be satisfied with the opposition because they're concerned about giving Ukraine long range weapons, which a Starlink equipped drone is. Since Starlink's stated policy is now to oppose that use, the DoD may be more open to being officially associated with supporting the provision of Starlink services to Ukraine. As for Starlink being okay with it just because they get paid, I don't see how that means they lack morals. They're obviously invested in Ukraine winning, but as a defense contractor they're also interested in being in alignment with the positions of the US government. Put differently, I don't really see it as SpaceX's decision to make regarding using Starlink as a long range weapons guidance system, that's the government's job to approve.
  - foobarqux 3y ago
    What you say is well reported are Musk claims that they donated a ton of services of free but the reporting I've seen that try to verify these claims always say that there was concurrent government buying (presumably at inflated prices) which makes it unclear how much if any net donation was actually made. If I sell the government a widget at 10x retail price and then throw in two extra for "free" I can go to the press and say that I'm a humanitarian donor. If you are Elon Musk people will actually believe it. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex-starlink-ukraine/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex-sta...
  - gamblor956 3y ago
    SpaceX didn't donate anything to Ukraine, all of the supposed "donations" were actually paid for by other governments, like Poland or the U.S. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/us-quietly-paying-millions-send-starlink-terminals-ukraine-contrary-spacexs-claims/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/us-quietl...)
    - signatoremo 3y ago
      This is a lie. The SpaceX asked the Pentagon to take over Starlink funding for Ukraine in Sep 2022. Why did they request that if they were already paid? USAD in their initial announcement of Starlink donation said SpaceX donated “roughly 10 millions” worth of 3,667 terminals, and they themselves bought additional 1,333 terminals (They later deleted those details): [0] - https://twitter.com/joroulette/status/1511781864356212737 https://twitter.com/joroulette/status/1511781864356212737 In addition, SpaceX donated at least 50 Powerwall according to the Ukraine’s government: [1] - https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukraine-received-20-000-starlink-terminals-since-start-of-war/ https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukraine-received-20-000-starlink-t...
      - gamblor956 3y ago
        Multiple sources, including the Pentagon, confirmed that SpaceX was not donating Starlink services in spring 2022 and that the Pentagon, Poland, and others had been paying for all of the equipment and services supposedly donated by SpaceX up to that point. SpaceX asked Pentagon "to take over" funding via Twitter because Musk either didn't know that the Pentagon was already doing that, or because he knew and wanted to lie about it to make himself look better. As Musk was espousing numerous Russian talking points at the time, it's also possible he was asked to do so by his Russian contacts. In addition, SpaceX donated at least 50 Powerwall according to the Ukraine’s government: Wow. For an order of 20,000 Starlink terminals, SpaceX is willing to throw in a few Powerwalls? It's like Apple throwing in a free lithium battery when you buy 20 iphones. We should all grovel before Musk's generosity in getting rid of obsolete previous-generation Powerwall units that Tesla was unable to sell to paying customers.
        3y ago
- dotnet00 3y ago
  Ukraine was not paying for the service, that was the entire point of the worry that SpaceX might pull out. They obviously have no reason to complain if they're getting paid. It was mostly donations. There were some third party sourced terminals which were being paid for, like the ~1300 provided by the UK of ~20k total that were in operation, (over which CNN started the blackmailing lie) but the service has thus far been mostly paid for by SpaceX itself.
  - foobarqux 3y ago
    There isn't much evidence apart from Musk's statements that they were getting the service for free. Third parties were definitely paying for terminals and services.
    - InTheArena 3y ago
      This is untrue. I am not sure where you get it from - but you can go look at the twitter comments (before Elon owned twitter) from the government and NGOs, and take a look at current statements from people in-theater. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/09/zelenskiy-aide-takes-aim-at-curbs-on-ukraine-use-of-starlink-to-pilot-drones-elon-musk#:~:text=Shortly%20after%20the%20start%20of,%2C”%20Musk%20said%20in%20reply https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/09/zelenskiy-aide....) Elon got cold feet when the Russians started threading Starlink with targeting with ASAT weapons, and when the Ukrainians (despite agreements) used starlink to remotely guide UAVs in Russia. Now that the UAVs are hitting Russia without starlink, and the Russians have backed off of threading to wipe out all American Satellites (which almost certainly lead to a nuclear confrontation since it would also blind detection systems), its less of a issue.
      - foobarqux 3y ago
        The source for your statements is Musk. As I said in other comments I'm talking about on net. If you charge 10x for 100 terminals and give 10 away for free you are not donating anything. If you look at actual reporting the revenue Musk is receiving from Ukraine service is enormous, hundreds of millions a year. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex-starlink-ukraine/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex-sta...
- ineedasername 3y ago
  Something to consider is that any services the Ukraine is funding comes in part or full by using other countries money, not only their own https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-us-aid-ukraine-money-equipment-714688682747 https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-us-aid-ukraine-money-e... I add that only for context though, not to address your main point which other commenters have done.
- newZWhoDis 3y ago
  Extremely misleading comment. As was publicly stated multiple times in basically every forum where this was discussed again and again the core issue was/is: Ukrainian military user =/= typical western starlink user. Starlinks in Ukraine were/are seeing an order of magnitude more usage in an adversarial environment, the cost to provide this level of service is clearly not the same vs supplying some Canadian shack in the woods. Even for civilians the star links are overwhelmingly shared, used as public access for a whole town as the only way to talk etc. This again is not typical and far exceeds the designed-for workload So I see a few possibilities here 1) You were aware of this basic reality but chose to mislead others Or the more charitable/HN friendly take: 2) Your routine sources of information are so biased and agenda-driven that this obvious, basic set of facts didn’t get to you because it would be inconvenient for their narrative. Since it’s probably #2 I encourage you to seek out more diverse sources of information, as you’re probably being misled about a lot more than just Starlink in Ukraine
  - foobarqux 3y ago
    The issue is not "is the cost more?" it's "is it 10x more?" This is hundreds of millions of dollars in this case. There is no evidence that anything at all has been changed in terms of hardware, satellites etc. Maybe you to have to hire extra cybersecurity personnel but not $100m worth (and you could tell if they had).
    - smallnamespace 3y ago
      It seems to me that if satellite bandwidth is the dominant cost, and a customer requires 10x more bandwidth, then you should charge 10x more. You should do that even if you haven’t launched any other satellites, because serving that customer means you can’t serve 10 others.
      - foobarqux 3y ago
        There isn't any evidence that there is actually 10x more bandwidth cost on average across all mil-gov terminals vs average across all retail users (who are pretty likely to be streaming Netflix/Youtube as well). 10x increase is a lot. More importantly, if you don't increase capacity all you are doing is charging an arbitrary price to implement priority. Starlink knows which are the military terminals so it can do that at no cost. I haven't seen reports of them increasing capacity and I don't think it costs anywhere near $100 million to do so. But if this is so easy to justify why aren't they making the per-unit/per-unit-service cost public? Or the total cost. I don't think most other cost of arms to Ukraine are hidden.
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  Most StarLink dishes aren't paid for by individuals
- fennecfoxy 3y ago
  Musk has become a knob (or maybe he always was) but a legitimate reason is whether Starlink's employees agree to the military use of the product they make (obviously it's up to higher ups, but often individuals have personal beliefs that should be taken into account by a good company). Personally I have no problem with it if it helps Ukraine show the world that war is ridiculous in these modern times and that one sovereign state invading another is an archaic concept that should be buried; let the Ukrainians bury war and the warmongers!
George83728 3y ago
My 'favorite' were the shrill comments saying that the defense industry was foolish to use Starlink because Musk might pick up SpaceX and relocate it to another country. As though he would be permitted to do that, even if he were so inclined? Lmao. I dislike Musk for many of his business practices, which I view as unethical and often outright illegal, but the hate train has really made some people lose their minds and suggest all sorts of outlandish nonsense. I wonder how much of it is provoked by foreign nations upset about Starlink astroturfing any discussion about it.
- dmix 3y ago
  The Ukraine thing has shown the only social media mind virus worse than politics is apparently war. People feel the need to blindly support it online like a sports team, with all the lack of nuance and mandatory public cheerleading that comes with it. So anyone not also a superfan is labelled the enemy. All that really matters is what is actually happening on the ground, and Starlink has and continues to be the most important foreign technology Ukraine has been given. Even more so than HIMARS and Patriot.
  - landemva 3y ago
    Are people blind to not understanding that providing war material and support can be considered as engaging in the war? Germany warned USA about this in 1915. https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4535149/newspaper-warning-notice-lusitania https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4535149/newspaper-warning-not...
    - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
      anything, from a blog post to simply existing, can be "considered" to be engaging in war by a sufficiently unreasonable considerer, and any such unreasonable considerer can make whatever unreasonable "warnings" they wish neither are a validation of the correctness of such a consideration or the righteousness of such a casus belli
- adventured 3y ago
foobarqux 3y ago
Despite what Musk says the issue was never free/not-free but what the markup over the civilian price would be for hardware and services that are exactly the same (or trivially different). The price to government is 10x+ the retail price civilians were paying to donate the same equipment and services. Musk was unhappy that people were paying retail price when he could be charging a government-special super-premium. My impression is that the government was resisting paying it but have now caved and are keeping the details secret to prevent a potential backlash. People were furious at Halliburton and other government contractors for price gouging during the Iraq war and you certainly got the impression that it was a "never again" situation but here we are.
- freedomben 3y ago
  > Musk was unhappy that people were paying retail price when he could be charging a government-special super-premium. How do you know this?
  - dmix 3y ago
    Considering this is the first reporting we're getting that the DOD even paid for it I'm guessing he doesn't and it's just the usual speculation.
  - foobarqux 3y ago
    Use common sense? Is the statement that a business person would prefer to be paid 10x rather than 1x contentious? Is Musk especially different in some way that would make this not true? If you want to argue about whether I should have qualified the statement with "it's very likely", or "it stands to reason", okay.
    - freedomben 3y ago
      If money is the only factor, then it certainly makes sense to prefer 10x to 1X. However, there are other factors. I know many people who would refuse a very high salary if they had ethical concerns about the work they were doing. Elon appears to have ethical concerns about supporting the war. It doesn't seem far-fetched to me to think that he might care more about not supporting war than about some money. But no I wasn't trying to make a point with the question, I was legitimately wondering if you had a source. I'd like to read more
blitzar 3y ago
Here's hoping people will finally stop propagating the myth that SpaceX had donated Starlink to the Ukraine.
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  Pray tell who paid for the dishes and power supply delivered on February 28 2022..and who paid for the service after the USAID contract expired

aardvarkr 3y ago

The Ukrainians pay spacex for their internet just like every else in the world. They have an internet bill for each terminal that costs the same as it does in the USA. It wasn’t some charitable donation from Musk. Musk was threatening to pull out of Ukraine because he complained it was costing him money and after he got to ride the initial wave of press releases about saving Ukraine he let his politics got in the way of his judgement.

dmix 3y ago
It's been well reported SpaceX donated a ton of services to Ukraine early in the war for free. It's discussed in the article posted here? Of course Ukrainians will not all be getting it free. SpaceX was mostly just saving face publicly about not directly working with the military and only doing it for civilian purposes. Which makes a lot of sense from a business perspective as they are a global business operating in plenty of countries. Once the DOD rolls up and offers a bunch of money those dynamics can change.
- partiallypro 3y ago
  The US paid $15M for terminals and services, and paid 3x the cost of what SpaceX sells them for to general consumers. Musk and SpaceX claimed otherwise but the USAID replied with receipts. https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-spacex-ukraine-starlink-government-funding https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-spacex-ukraine-starli... https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/8/23016670/starlink-spacex-us-government-terminals-funding-usaid https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/8/23016670/starlink-spacex-u... Any "free" service was always to demo the usefulness of the product to the DoD for them eventually to pay through the nose. Musk got flak for his comments because a) it was a half-truth b) he made it very publicly, c) he started promoting Russian government accounts on For You pages, and d) he started echoing Russian sentiments and/or falsehoods about the war. If he had not done any of that he would have still gotten the money and not looked like a fool. No one expected Starlink to lose money on the deal, and they haven't.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ed25519FUUU 3y ago
    Funny to me that spacex is the only company not allowed to grift the US government war machine.
    - partiallypro 3y ago
      What are you talking about? You do realize you're replying to a thread on the Pentagon giving SpaceX funding, right? Not to mention SpaceX already had pre-existing contracts with the DoD and even has a defense contractor arm dubbed StarShield. Musk only got pushback because he went on a childish tirade (an increasing habit of his) on Twitter and then started pushing opposition narratives.
    - foobarqux 3y ago
      It's amazing that people go from "Musk is not grifting the US government" to "Musk is grifting the government (actually the people of the US) and that is good and right".
      - George83728 3y ago
        You're overloading your definitions of "grift", to simultaneously mean dishonest scamming and standard profiteering. SpaceX is a regular for-profit defense contractor. They aren't scamming the government. For anybody aligned with America's foreign policy interests, both of these are a good thing. (And for those who aren't, it's an unmitigated disaster.)
        mardifoufs 3y ago
        Grifting basically just means "people I don't like are making money" at this point. I've seen someone selling industrial tooling being called a grifter.
        foobarqux 3y ago
- that_guy_iain 3y ago
  > SpaceX was mostly just saving face publicly about not directly working with the military and only doing it for civilian purposes. Which makes a lot of sense from a business perspective as they are a global business operating in plenty of countries. Once the DOD rolls up and offers a bunch of money those dynamics can change. Wasn't the actual issue was that they can't allow their tech to be used with weapons. Ukraine was using it to use drones with explosives attached. Allowing that would have made Starlink something controlled under the weapons export laws. Therefore, they can't allow it. Or was that another of the many things with Starlink and Ukraine?
  - lumost 3y ago
    DOD paying for services might indicate that that ship has sailed and spacex is fine with it. The tech would have been considered “dual-use” eventually. Dual-use tech has complex export laws. Having the DoD as an invested partner will help fund future projects/provide financial stability to spacex generally.
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      It can alternatively mean that the DoD is now satisfied with SpaceX's opposition to strapping Starlink to drones and is willing to pay them as a result.
      - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        why would the DoD be satisfied with the opposition? and why would Starlink be okay with it just because they got paid? It sounds like you're saying they never had any actual morals or principles except getting more money
        dotnet00 3y ago
        The DoD would be satisfied with the opposition because they're concerned about giving Ukraine long range weapons, which a Starlink equipped drone is. Since Starlink's stated policy is now to oppose that use, the DoD may be more open to being officially associated with supporting the provision of Starlink services to Ukraine. As for Starlink being okay with it just because they get paid, I don't see how that means they lack morals. They're obviously invested in Ukraine winning, but as a defense contractor they're also interested in being in alignment with the positions of the US government. Put differently, I don't really see it as SpaceX's decision to make regarding using Starlink as a long range weapons guidance system, that's the government's job to approve.
- foobarqux 3y ago
  What you say is well reported are Musk claims that they donated a ton of services of free but the reporting I've seen that try to verify these claims always say that there was concurrent government buying (presumably at inflated prices) which makes it unclear how much if any net donation was actually made. If I sell the government a widget at 10x retail price and then throw in two extra for "free" I can go to the press and say that I'm a humanitarian donor. If you are Elon Musk people will actually believe it. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex-starlink-ukraine/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex-sta...
- gamblor956 3y ago
  SpaceX didn't donate anything to Ukraine, all of the supposed "donations" were actually paid for by other governments, like Poland or the U.S. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/us-quietly-paying-millions-send-starlink-terminals-ukraine-contrary-spacexs-claims/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/us-quietl...)
  - signatoremo 3y ago
    This is a lie. The SpaceX asked the Pentagon to take over Starlink funding for Ukraine in Sep 2022. Why did they request that if they were already paid? USAD in their initial announcement of Starlink donation said SpaceX donated “roughly 10 millions” worth of 3,667 terminals, and they themselves bought additional 1,333 terminals (They later deleted those details): [0] - https://twitter.com/joroulette/status/1511781864356212737 https://twitter.com/joroulette/status/1511781864356212737 In addition, SpaceX donated at least 50 Powerwall according to the Ukraine’s government: [1] - https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukraine-received-20-000-starlink-terminals-since-start-of-war/ https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukraine-received-20-000-starlink-t...
    - gamblor956 3y ago
      Multiple sources, including the Pentagon, confirmed that SpaceX was not donating Starlink services in spring 2022 and that the Pentagon, Poland, and others had been paying for all of the equipment and services supposedly donated by SpaceX up to that point. SpaceX asked Pentagon "to take over" funding via Twitter because Musk either didn't know that the Pentagon was already doing that, or because he knew and wanted to lie about it to make himself look better. As Musk was espousing numerous Russian talking points at the time, it's also possible he was asked to do so by his Russian contacts. In addition, SpaceX donated at least 50 Powerwall according to the Ukraine’s government: Wow. For an order of 20,000 Starlink terminals, SpaceX is willing to throw in a few Powerwalls? It's like Apple throwing in a free lithium battery when you buy 20 iphones. We should all grovel before Musk's generosity in getting rid of obsolete previous-generation Powerwall units that Tesla was unable to sell to paying customers.
      - 3y ago
dotnet00 3y ago
Ukraine was not paying for the service, that was the entire point of the worry that SpaceX might pull out. They obviously have no reason to complain if they're getting paid. It was mostly donations. There were some third party sourced terminals which were being paid for, like the ~1300 provided by the UK of ~20k total that were in operation, (over which CNN started the blackmailing lie) but the service has thus far been mostly paid for by SpaceX itself.
- foobarqux 3y ago
  There isn't much evidence apart from Musk's statements that they were getting the service for free. Third parties were definitely paying for terminals and services.
  - InTheArena 3y ago
    This is untrue. I am not sure where you get it from - but you can go look at the twitter comments (before Elon owned twitter) from the government and NGOs, and take a look at current statements from people in-theater. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/09/zelenskiy-aide-takes-aim-at-curbs-on-ukraine-use-of-starlink-to-pilot-drones-elon-musk#:~:text=Shortly%20after%20the%20start%20of,%2C”%20Musk%20said%20in%20reply https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/09/zelenskiy-aide....) Elon got cold feet when the Russians started threading Starlink with targeting with ASAT weapons, and when the Ukrainians (despite agreements) used starlink to remotely guide UAVs in Russia. Now that the UAVs are hitting Russia without starlink, and the Russians have backed off of threading to wipe out all American Satellites (which almost certainly lead to a nuclear confrontation since it would also blind detection systems), its less of a issue.
    - foobarqux 3y ago
      The source for your statements is Musk. As I said in other comments I'm talking about on net. If you charge 10x for 100 terminals and give 10 away for free you are not donating anything. If you look at actual reporting the revenue Musk is receiving from Ukraine service is enormous, hundreds of millions a year. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex-starlink-ukraine/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex-sta...
ineedasername 3y ago
Something to consider is that any services the Ukraine is funding comes in part or full by using other countries money, not only their own https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-us-aid-ukraine-money-equipment-714688682747 https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-us-aid-ukraine-money-e... I add that only for context though, not to address your main point which other commenters have done.
newZWhoDis 3y ago
Extremely misleading comment. As was publicly stated multiple times in basically every forum where this was discussed again and again the core issue was/is: Ukrainian military user =/= typical western starlink user. Starlinks in Ukraine were/are seeing an order of magnitude more usage in an adversarial environment, the cost to provide this level of service is clearly not the same vs supplying some Canadian shack in the woods. Even for civilians the star links are overwhelmingly shared, used as public access for a whole town as the only way to talk etc. This again is not typical and far exceeds the designed-for workload So I see a few possibilities here 1) You were aware of this basic reality but chose to mislead others Or the more charitable/HN friendly take: 2) Your routine sources of information are so biased and agenda-driven that this obvious, basic set of facts didn’t get to you because it would be inconvenient for their narrative. Since it’s probably #2 I encourage you to seek out more diverse sources of information, as you’re probably being misled about a lot more than just Starlink in Ukraine
- foobarqux 3y ago
  The issue is not "is the cost more?" it's "is it 10x more?" This is hundreds of millions of dollars in this case. There is no evidence that anything at all has been changed in terms of hardware, satellites etc. Maybe you to have to hire extra cybersecurity personnel but not $100m worth (and you could tell if they had).
  - smallnamespace 3y ago
    It seems to me that if satellite bandwidth is the dominant cost, and a customer requires 10x more bandwidth, then you should charge 10x more. You should do that even if you haven’t launched any other satellites, because serving that customer means you can’t serve 10 others.
    - foobarqux 3y ago
      There isn't any evidence that there is actually 10x more bandwidth cost on average across all mil-gov terminals vs average across all retail users (who are pretty likely to be streaming Netflix/Youtube as well). 10x increase is a lot. More importantly, if you don't increase capacity all you are doing is charging an arbitrary price to implement priority. Starlink knows which are the military terminals so it can do that at no cost. I haven't seen reports of them increasing capacity and I don't think it costs anywhere near $100 million to do so. But if this is so easy to justify why aren't they making the per-unit/per-unit-service cost public? Or the total cost. I don't think most other cost of arms to Ukraine are hidden.
inemesitaffia 3y ago
Most StarLink dishes aren't paid for by individuals
fennecfoxy 3y ago
Musk has become a knob (or maybe he always was) but a legitimate reason is whether Starlink's employees agree to the military use of the product they make (obviously it's up to higher ups, but often individuals have personal beliefs that should be taken into account by a good company). Personally I have no problem with it if it helps Ukraine show the world that war is ridiculous in these modern times and that one sovereign state invading another is an archaic concept that should be buried; let the Ukrainians bury war and the warmongers!

George83728 3y ago

My 'favorite' were the shrill comments saying that the defense industry was foolish to use Starlink because Musk might pick up SpaceX and relocate it to another country. As though he would be permitted to do that, even if he were so inclined? Lmao. I dislike Musk for many of his business practices, which I view as unethical and often outright illegal, but the hate train has really made some people lose their minds and suggest all sorts of outlandish nonsense. I wonder how much of it is provoked by foreign nations upset about Starlink astroturfing any discussion about it.

dmix 3y ago
The Ukraine thing has shown the only social media mind virus worse than politics is apparently war. People feel the need to blindly support it online like a sports team, with all the lack of nuance and mandatory public cheerleading that comes with it. So anyone not also a superfan is labelled the enemy. All that really matters is what is actually happening on the ground, and Starlink has and continues to be the most important foreign technology Ukraine has been given. Even more so than HIMARS and Patriot.
- landemva 3y ago
  Are people blind to not understanding that providing war material and support can be considered as engaging in the war? Germany warned USA about this in 1915. https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4535149/newspaper-warning-notice-lusitania https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4535149/newspaper-warning-not...
  - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
    anything, from a blog post to simply existing, can be "considered" to be engaging in war by a sufficiently unreasonable considerer, and any such unreasonable considerer can make whatever unreasonable "warnings" they wish neither are a validation of the correctness of such a consideration or the righteousness of such a casus belli
adventured 3y ago

foobarqux 3y ago

Despite what Musk says the issue was never free/not-free but what the markup over the civilian price would be for hardware and services that are exactly the same (or trivially different). The price to government is 10x+ the retail price civilians were paying to donate the same equipment and services. Musk was unhappy that people were paying retail price when he could be charging a government-special super-premium. My impression is that the government was resisting paying it but have now caved and are keeping the details secret to prevent a potential backlash. People were furious at Halliburton and other government contractors for price gouging during the Iraq war and you certainly got the impression that it was a "never again" situation but here we are.

freedomben 3y ago
> Musk was unhappy that people were paying retail price when he could be charging a government-special super-premium. How do you know this?
- dmix 3y ago
  Considering this is the first reporting we're getting that the DOD even paid for it I'm guessing he doesn't and it's just the usual speculation.
- foobarqux 3y ago
  Use common sense? Is the statement that a business person would prefer to be paid 10x rather than 1x contentious? Is Musk especially different in some way that would make this not true? If you want to argue about whether I should have qualified the statement with "it's very likely", or "it stands to reason", okay.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    If money is the only factor, then it certainly makes sense to prefer 10x to 1X. However, there are other factors. I know many people who would refuse a very high salary if they had ethical concerns about the work they were doing. Elon appears to have ethical concerns about supporting the war. It doesn't seem far-fetched to me to think that he might care more about not supporting war than about some money. But no I wasn't trying to make a point with the question, I was legitimately wondering if you had a source. I'd like to read more

blitzar 3y ago

Here's hoping people will finally stop propagating the myth that SpaceX had donated Starlink to the Ukraine.

inemesitaffia 3y ago
Pray tell who paid for the dishes and power supply delivered on February 28 2022..and who paid for the service after the USAID contract expired