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That's arguably fine in a free-market, this is not one. And it's a weird argument to say that the price the government should pay is whatever the most any grou

That's arguably fine in a free-market, this is not one. And it's a weird argument to say that the price the government should pay is whatever the most any group is willing to pay for Starlink; The price segmentation, especially at the high-end, is mostly not based on cost to provide service but customer propensity to pay (boat and private jet owners). It doesn't make any sense to say "this is the special price we charge to Jeff Bezos and he doesn't care it's so high because he's rich therefore the government should also pay that price". As I said elsewhere price rationing for priority doesn't make sense in this case (because the government already knows who should get priority) and neither does higher prices as a signal to increase investment in capacity (because that investment doesn't look like it's being made despite the high prices and because creating capacity is just difficult because of the fact that the limitation is number of satellites in overhead and that can't be increased only in a specific area using LEO sats.)

elcritch 3y ago
> And it's a weird argument to say that the price the government should pay is whatever the most any group is willing to pay for Starlink; No I'm not saying that the govt should pay the same as the maximum any group pays. Rather it's that the military requirements/desires are going to be similar to what private commercial or industrial entities desire and therefore are willing to pay. This isn't about Bezos in his jet, but what say American Airlines or Maersk pays for commercial services. Generally commercial / industrial uses include things like SLAs, guaranteed bandwidth, R&D for service during movement, etc. > As I said elsewhere price rationing for priority doesn't make sense in this case (because the government already knows who should get priority) and neither does higher prices as a signal to increase investment in capacity If a military user wants data priority then it makes sense it'll cost them for that privilege. The density of the LEO constellation can and is being increased, along with other R&D investments. These investments undoubtedly include forecasting the higher pricing for industrial and military usage.
- foobarqux 3y ago
  > Generally commercial / industrial uses include things like SLAs, guaranteed bandwidth, R&D for service during movement, etc. It's a stretch to call any of these things value-add features since in this case they are basically provided to everyone equally (except prioritization which I addressed elsewhere). Presumably the "mobile" R&D is also paid for by the mobile plan which is $200/month not $4k/month (and which has already been researched and deployed without expectation of a major war to finance it). But it's really easy to answer this question in practice: If there is so much value-add let them choose between the retail price and the government-special price with the SLA guarantees, etc on a per terminal basis. I really don't see anybody being willing to pay 10x more except for a few select applications. > If a military user wants data priority then it makes sense it'll cost them for that privilege. It doesn't though. It's an arbitrary charge whose only functions are 1. price-rationing 2. investment inducement and 3. profit for SpaceX. I've explained why 1 and 2 don't apply here so it's just an arbitrary fee by SpaceX. > The density of the LEO constellation can and is being increased, along with other R&D investments. It isn't being increased for Ukraine, I don't see any evidence of investment to support Ukraine capacity and certainly not hundreds of millions of dollars worth. > These investments undoubtedly include forecasting the higher pricing for industrial and military usage. Yes it's the government subsidizing SpaceX (who will claim that they receive no government subsidies).

elcritch 3y ago

> And it's a weird argument to say that the price the government should pay is whatever the most any group is willing to pay for Starlink; No I'm not saying that the govt should pay the same as the maximum any group pays. Rather it's that the military requirements/desires are going to be similar to what private commercial or industrial entities desire and therefore are willing to pay. This isn't about Bezos in his jet, but what say American Airlines or Maersk pays for commercial services. Generally commercial / industrial uses include things like SLAs, guaranteed bandwidth, R&D for service during movement, etc. > As I said elsewhere price rationing for priority doesn't make sense in this case (because the government already knows who should get priority) and neither does higher prices as a signal to increase investment in capacity If a military user wants data priority then it makes sense it'll cost them for that privilege. The density of the LEO constellation can and is being increased, along with other R&D investments. These investments undoubtedly include forecasting the higher pricing for industrial and military usage.

foobarqux 3y ago
> Generally commercial / industrial uses include things like SLAs, guaranteed bandwidth, R&D for service during movement, etc. It's a stretch to call any of these things value-add features since in this case they are basically provided to everyone equally (except prioritization which I addressed elsewhere). Presumably the "mobile" R&D is also paid for by the mobile plan which is $200/month not $4k/month (and which has already been researched and deployed without expectation of a major war to finance it). But it's really easy to answer this question in practice: If there is so much value-add let them choose between the retail price and the government-special price with the SLA guarantees, etc on a per terminal basis. I really don't see anybody being willing to pay 10x more except for a few select applications. > If a military user wants data priority then it makes sense it'll cost them for that privilege. It doesn't though. It's an arbitrary charge whose only functions are 1. price-rationing 2. investment inducement and 3. profit for SpaceX. I've explained why 1 and 2 don't apply here so it's just an arbitrary fee by SpaceX. > The density of the LEO constellation can and is being increased, along with other R&D investments. It isn't being increased for Ukraine, I don't see any evidence of investment to support Ukraine capacity and certainly not hundreds of millions of dollars worth. > These investments undoubtedly include forecasting the higher pricing for industrial and military usage. Yes it's the government subsidizing SpaceX (who will claim that they receive no government subsidies).