8 ms·

It looks like it's becoming apparent that Elon's empire is based on a lot of impossible promises. Starlink is probably one of them. A perfect 'business' for Mu

It looks like it's becoming apparent that Elon's empire is based on a lot of impossible promises. Starlink is probably one of them. A perfect 'business' for Musk. You can show something great - high speed internet in remote areas - and then extrapolate that - just think about the whole world etc... Faster than fibre, with V2... Thing is, this business is probably not economically viable. It can work if not a lot of people use it - but it's maintained afloat by government money. But if 10x customers sign on, bandwidth will completely plummet and it won't be such a great service anymore. But in the meantime, and it's quite a long time, Elon can continue to extract billions $ of taxpayers money.

martindbp 3y ago
[flagged]
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  Are they wrong about these details then? Or is that the defense: “doesn’t matter if I’m actually doing that or not. The government is out to get me.”
  - gruez 3y ago
    The document in the tweet has a list of rebuttals.
    - Waterluvian 3y ago
      Unfortunately Twitter doesn't function for me after loading it a few times earlier today. I max out my daily quota through precaching or something. It used to work a few years back!
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    To someone who's used to getting away with murder, enforcement of the rules as written seems like persecution. Consider the "Funding secured" mess Elon got himself into with the SEC[1]. [1] https://www.theverge.com/23558736/elon-musk-securities-fraud-trial-funding-secured-tweet https://www.theverge.com/23558736/elon-musk-securities-fraud...
- timeon 3y ago
  Can you post link that is not login-walled?
  - gruez 3y ago
    https://nitter.net/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1734696706795778126 https://nitter.net/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1734696706795778126
- ceruleanseas 3y ago
  It was not targeted. They are not able to meet the constraints written out in the law. Are you saying we should ignore the law as it was written and give them the hand out anyway?
  - infamouscow 3y ago
    Enough laws have been written that you are in violation of many of them by nature of existing. There are also plenty of contradictory laws still on the books which are not enforced because it's considered ridiculous to the judicial system. Judges don't like it, and prosecutors have better things to do like going after criminals. Perusing idiotic nonsense before putting all the murders and rapists in prison really does more to undermine the legitimacy of the legal system than any political adversary to the US could ever dream of.
    - ceruleanseas 3y ago
      The rule of law is important and trying to use nihilistic arguments to ignore the laws as they are written to give one of the world's richest people a free billion dollars even though his company is not able to provide the specified service defies all logic.
    - ericpauley 3y ago
      This isn't some arcane "no horse parking on Sundays" law. The whole purpose of the law is to deliver the specified speeds and the requirements are not being met.
    - FireBeyond 3y ago
      Are you really comparing "inability to receive government subsidies due to not meeting requirements" to violent physical crimes?
  - marcusverus 3y ago
    > They are not able to meet the constraints written out in the law. Which constraints were they not able to meet? Brendan Carr, an FCC Commissioner, has publicly claimed that Starlink clearly met the traditional constraints, but that the FCC invented a new standard and claimed that Starlink failed to meet that. [0] > Are you saying we should ignore the law as it was written and give them the hand out anyway? It depends. Did the FCC apply their standard in a consistent way? And is it normal practice for them to revoke the contract of every partner for the mere possibility of their missing a deadline? If the answer to both questions is 'Yes', then this action is proper. If not, then it is not only improper, but would appear to be an act of blatant political corruption, aimed at someone who is clearly considered to be an enemy of the administration. The selective enforcement of the law is the very definition of corruption. [0] https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1734696706795778126/photo/1 https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/173469670679577812...
- tekno45 3y ago
  Like an investigation maybe?
- devindotcom 3y ago
  the decision was made before he bought twitter
asylteltine 3y ago
Elon “over promise and under deliver” Musk FSD is coming any day now right?
- goodguy29495 3y ago
  you can try it out in any post-2018 Tesla with the option package.
  - bdcravens 3y ago
    Beta test it, if you're eligible, and if you paid for it.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - asylteltine 3y ago
    You mean you can BETA test this in a life or death situation and put non-consenting individuals at risk because you want to flex your toy right? It’s demonstrably dangerous and shouldn’t be allowed on public roads.
  - brianpan 3y ago
    What you can try out today is "fully" self-driving with limited capabilities in limited scenarios. Hardly fully anything.
akho 3y ago
It’s very obviously a military project. I don’t see what you expect to be different wrt funding.
madaxe_again 3y ago
How is it “maintained afloat” by government money, when it receives no subsidies? The only government payment for starlink that I am aware of is for the terminals in Ukraine.
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  If it recives no subsidies then not getting a $900M subsidy shouldn't be a surprise!
  - belltaco 3y ago
    The comment said "continue to extract..". Try again.
grecy 3y ago
Starlink was never designed to be faster than fibre, and it was certainly never designed or intended for use by people that ave access to fibre (or cable, or LTE for that matter). SpaceX have re-iterated this on many, many occasions. Anyone who things otherwise simply doesn't understand the product. Starlink is designed for people who live in remote areas that have no access to any of that. Go out right now and see how life changing it is for those people. All across Northern Canada & rural Australia I've met dozens of people who previously had access to dial-up AT BEST in 2022, and now have solid broadband connections.
- TheAlchemist 3y ago
  It was. The V2 that they are deploying is supposedly communicating directly between satellites, making it faster than fiber over long distances. Elon advertised that in 2019 or something already. I don't deny it is life changing for those people ! All I'm saying is that it's not economically viable to provide that to those people. And the only way it is, it's because it's either a business bleeding money, or supported by the government.
  - grecy 3y ago
    > It was No. It was never designed or advertised to offer "faster than fibre" connections to end users, and all along Musk and maintained it makes absolutely no sense for a person to use Starlink if they already have access to a ground-based option like fibre or cable or LTE. > All I'm saying is that it's not economically viable to provide that to those people. And the only way it is, it's because it's either a business bleeding money, or supported by the government Those are wild claims. Please post citations about how it's bleeding money or is supported by the government.
  - alsodumb 3y ago
    You are obviously giving very biased answers without any substantial proof.
    - JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago
gruez 3y ago
>Thing is, this business is probably not economically viable. It can work if not a lot of people use it - but it's maintained afloat by government money. But if 10x customers sign on, bandwidth will completely plummet and it won't be such a great service anymore. That's a nice story, but can you do some math to substantiate it? For instance, is there some fundamental limit between how much bandwidth a satellite can provide, how much it costs, and how much the monthly subscription is?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

martindbp 3y ago

[flagged]

Waterluvian 3y ago
Are they wrong about these details then? Or is that the defense: “doesn’t matter if I’m actually doing that or not. The government is out to get me.”
- gruez 3y ago
  The document in the tweet has a list of rebuttals.
  - Waterluvian 3y ago
    Unfortunately Twitter doesn't function for me after loading it a few times earlier today. I max out my daily quota through precaching or something. It used to work a few years back!
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  To someone who's used to getting away with murder, enforcement of the rules as written seems like persecution. Consider the "Funding secured" mess Elon got himself into with the SEC[1]. [1] https://www.theverge.com/23558736/elon-musk-securities-fraud-trial-funding-secured-tweet https://www.theverge.com/23558736/elon-musk-securities-fraud...
timeon 3y ago
Can you post link that is not login-walled?
- gruez 3y ago
  https://nitter.net/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1734696706795778126 https://nitter.net/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1734696706795778126
ceruleanseas 3y ago
It was not targeted. They are not able to meet the constraints written out in the law. Are you saying we should ignore the law as it was written and give them the hand out anyway?
- infamouscow 3y ago
  Enough laws have been written that you are in violation of many of them by nature of existing. There are also plenty of contradictory laws still on the books which are not enforced because it's considered ridiculous to the judicial system. Judges don't like it, and prosecutors have better things to do like going after criminals. Perusing idiotic nonsense before putting all the murders and rapists in prison really does more to undermine the legitimacy of the legal system than any political adversary to the US could ever dream of.
  - ceruleanseas 3y ago
    The rule of law is important and trying to use nihilistic arguments to ignore the laws as they are written to give one of the world's richest people a free billion dollars even though his company is not able to provide the specified service defies all logic.
  - ericpauley 3y ago
    This isn't some arcane "no horse parking on Sundays" law. The whole purpose of the law is to deliver the specified speeds and the requirements are not being met.
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    Are you really comparing "inability to receive government subsidies due to not meeting requirements" to violent physical crimes?
- marcusverus 3y ago
  > They are not able to meet the constraints written out in the law. Which constraints were they not able to meet? Brendan Carr, an FCC Commissioner, has publicly claimed that Starlink clearly met the traditional constraints, but that the FCC invented a new standard and claimed that Starlink failed to meet that. [0] > Are you saying we should ignore the law as it was written and give them the hand out anyway? It depends. Did the FCC apply their standard in a consistent way? And is it normal practice for them to revoke the contract of every partner for the mere possibility of their missing a deadline? If the answer to both questions is 'Yes', then this action is proper. If not, then it is not only improper, but would appear to be an act of blatant political corruption, aimed at someone who is clearly considered to be an enemy of the administration. The selective enforcement of the law is the very definition of corruption. [0] https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1734696706795778126/photo/1 https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/173469670679577812...
tekno45 3y ago
Like an investigation maybe?
devindotcom 3y ago
the decision was made before he bought twitter

asylteltine 3y ago

Elon “over promise and under deliver” Musk FSD is coming any day now right?

goodguy29495 3y ago
you can try it out in any post-2018 Tesla with the option package.
- bdcravens 3y ago
  Beta test it, if you're eligible, and if you paid for it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- asylteltine 3y ago
  You mean you can BETA test this in a life or death situation and put non-consenting individuals at risk because you want to flex your toy right? It’s demonstrably dangerous and shouldn’t be allowed on public roads.
- brianpan 3y ago
  What you can try out today is "fully" self-driving with limited capabilities in limited scenarios. Hardly fully anything.

akho 3y ago

It’s very obviously a military project. I don’t see what you expect to be different wrt funding.

madaxe_again 3y ago

How is it “maintained afloat” by government money, when it receives no subsidies? The only government payment for starlink that I am aware of is for the terminals in Ukraine.

Waterluvian 3y ago
If it recives no subsidies then not getting a $900M subsidy shouldn't be a surprise!
- belltaco 3y ago
  The comment said "continue to extract..". Try again.

grecy 3y ago

Starlink was never designed to be faster than fibre, and it was certainly never designed or intended for use by people that ave access to fibre (or cable, or LTE for that matter). SpaceX have re-iterated this on many, many occasions. Anyone who things otherwise simply doesn't understand the product. Starlink is designed for people who live in remote areas that have no access to any of that. Go out right now and see how life changing it is for those people. All across Northern Canada & rural Australia I've met dozens of people who previously had access to dial-up AT BEST in 2022, and now have solid broadband connections.

TheAlchemist 3y ago
It was. The V2 that they are deploying is supposedly communicating directly between satellites, making it faster than fiber over long distances. Elon advertised that in 2019 or something already. I don't deny it is life changing for those people ! All I'm saying is that it's not economically viable to provide that to those people. And the only way it is, it's because it's either a business bleeding money, or supported by the government.
- grecy 3y ago
  > It was No. It was never designed or advertised to offer "faster than fibre" connections to end users, and all along Musk and maintained it makes absolutely no sense for a person to use Starlink if they already have access to a ground-based option like fibre or cable or LTE. > All I'm saying is that it's not economically viable to provide that to those people. And the only way it is, it's because it's either a business bleeding money, or supported by the government Those are wild claims. Please post citations about how it's bleeding money or is supported by the government.
- alsodumb 3y ago
  You are obviously giving very biased answers without any substantial proof.
  - JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago

gruez 3y ago

>Thing is, this business is probably not economically viable. It can work if not a lot of people use it - but it's maintained afloat by government money. But if 10x customers sign on, bandwidth will completely plummet and it won't be such a great service anymore. That's a nice story, but can you do some math to substantiate it? For instance, is there some fundamental limit between how much bandwidth a satellite can provide, how much it costs, and how much the monthly subscription is?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]