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Vertical integration by Starlink of the cheapest launch capability in the world (by far) is the reason there are no competitors, and there will be no competitor

Vertical integration by Starlink of the cheapest launch capability in the world (by far) is the reason there are no competitors, and there will be no competitors. The pace of innovation at SpaceX is not THE reason - it’s an additional reason that no one has a snowballs chance in hell of ever catching Starlink. I’ve seen talk of competitor satellite networks or a possible competitor emerging. Folks it’s game set and match, the trophy has been handed over and the crowd has gone home. SpaceX and Starlink have the same owner, both are private companies, with SpaceX launching 80% of the global space payload last year and rising, and Starlink has a constellation two orders of magnitude bigger than any competitor. It’s over. And IMO it’s awesome.

itsoktocry 2y ago
>Folks it’s game set and match, the trophy has been handed over and the crowd has gone home Has this ever been the case in the history of business? It won't be easy, but forever is a long time.
jorvi 2y ago
What a ridiculous comment. You must still be holding long on IBM?
barfingclouds 2y ago
Well competitors are going to have to use SpaceX rockets to get their satellites up. So no matter what SpaceX is winning
LoveMortuus 2y ago
You don't think that Blue Origin could be a competitor? They are quite behind, but they are backed by quite a lot of money, I feel like I remember even hearing news about Blue Origin placing their own internet satellites.
nehal3m 2y ago
Are you Elon? Also monopolies are never awesome.
- Taek 2y ago
  if you don't want monopolies then you need to create regulations that make it easy for new startups to compete
  - nehal3m 2y ago
    I agree, but given Elons current position there is basically no chance that’s going to happen in the next four years.
    - coliveira 2y ago
      The future of the US: 90% of cars will be Tesla (other carmakers will go bankrupt), internet access and space exploration will be monopolized as well.
      - yencabulator 2y ago
        Attempting to make Ford disappear would be a political suicide.
        coliveira 2y ago
        Yes, Ford will be on that 10% left.
- fragmede 2y ago
  For the monopolist they are!
  - flanked-evergl 2y ago
    Historically they have been even better for consumers than monopolists.
- montagg 2y ago
  They are when you can regulate the crap out of them to benefit everyone after they’ve benefited from government contracts, FCC governance, an educated population, etc.
modeless 2y ago
I disagree. Starlink is indeed awesome and SpaceX deserves every bit of their success. But there will be competitors eventually, if for no other reason than foreign militaries sponsoring them. There's no inherent reason for this to be a winner takes all market. We can only hope the competitors are half as responsible as SpaceX has been about space debris risk and ensuring the satellites are not visible to the naked eye and don't disrupt astronomy. So far the proposals I've seen have been much worse than Starlink in these areas.
- throwing_away 2y ago
  I disagree too, but because it will no longer require military budget to start a SpaceX competitor. Pretty soon AI agents could reasonably take a crack at it.
  - mmaunder 2y ago
    I’m sure LangGraph has Elon quaking in his boots.
- mmaunder 2y ago
  Game that out for us. How government innovation competes with a private sector launch company whose main differentiator is lower cost.
  - modeless 2y ago
    China is going to do it for sure. It doesn't have to be as efficient as SpaceX if it is massively subsidized for defense purposes. And China is pretty good at building things cheap. On the commercial side Blue Origin has been slow in starting but they are almost ready and will have relatively cheap launches. There are other up and coming private launch competitors too.
    - jimmydoe 2y ago
      Nothing is impossible but it takes time. Based on current disclosed plan, they will have same number of LEOs as SpaceX have today by ~2030; and SpaceX is not slowing down either.
nikkwong 2y ago
My family had starlink installed at a remote house we own for internet access. While we could get it up and running, the connection wasn't reliable and we encountered many issues. When we tried to contact Starlink for help, support was non-existent; sent us to multiple dead ends, and often wasted our times with repairs promised weeks into the future, over and over, which never surfaced. After 8 months of pain, we ended up getting rid of it and moving back to our 6mbps. Starlink is like Elon's other companies. Engineering marvels—where the customer's are merely an annoyance and the means to an end. They are basically hostile to the customer every step of the way; and from what I've seen from Elon—I think this attitude comes right from the top.
- UltraSane 2y ago
  "and from what I've seen from Elon—I think this attitude comes right from the top." Yep. Tesla infamously doesn't have a Public Relations department ( I assume because he got rejected by a woman who worked there) and “press@twitter.com now auto responds with [poop emoji],” Musk tweeted. Ladies and gentlemen, the richest man in the world!
- benjam47 2y ago
  I was an early user of Starlink, starting with the original terminal (today I have the 3rd generation high performance terminal). Being in a very rural area in MT where there was never congestion in my cell and I have a very open view of the sky, it has worked well for me since day 1 and has only gotten better with time. Personally, I monitored latency more than speed, as I always had enough speed to do whatever I wanted. When I first started using SL, latency averaged around 100ms (which compared to my previous provider HughesNet was amazing, but was high compared to ground based connections), but today averages around 35ms which is still technically higher than ground based connections, but for all practical purposes for me, is indisguishable from any other internet option, even for online gaming and live video streaming. Although I did not monitor speed as regurarily, it averages around 300Mbps for me. Sometimes it exceeds 400Mbps (I just ran a speed test and got 420Mbps), and it is rarely less than 100Mbps. I have contacted support twice, and always received quick replies. However, based on my monitoring the Starlink Reddit forum, customer support during their beta period did appear to have often been poor. And there was also a period of time where performance was poor in many populated regions as they started opening up the floodgates a bit sooner than they probably should have, resulting in slow speeds for people in many regions, until their satellite launches caught up to demand. However, my impression is that both of these issues have improved significantly since Starlink left beta. I do still see some complaints about customer service, but anecdotally it appears less frequent. My impression is that they have the ability to remotely troubleshoot many hardware issues, and will quickly send a replacement if they can confirm a fault. I do worry about this though, as even a quick reply and a quick hardware replacement means several days of downtime. Speed complaints are almost certainly less frequent than they used to be. I have no doubt that your customer service hell story is true, and if that happened to me I would be just as turned off, but I think that, especially today, that is not the norm. I have considered purchasing a spare terminal as a backup, but I do have some concerns. I have heard that terminals that stay unpowered and unconnected for very long periods of time get too behind on FW updates and essentially become bricked, I don't believe that is the case today but I am not 100% sure. Also, back when there used to be a queue for signing up, it would not have been practical to just set up a new account for the new terminal, but now that the sign up queue is gone, maybe it is an option today. I have not fully researched my options for this redundancy idea.
esaym 2y ago
>I’ve seen talk of competitor satellite networks Swansat anyone? https://web.archive.org/web/20080119080404/http://swansat.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080119080404/http://swansat.co...
dyauspitr 2y ago
It’s awesome but also worrying. Elon is a political timebomb. I wouldn’t put it past him to selectively deny people usage based on political alignment, sex etc. At least for now there are much worse geosynchronous competitors, but some future state where one doesn’t exist is worrying.
- hcurtiss 2y ago
  Wouldn’t put it past him? Can you offer even a single example?
  - dyauspitr 2y ago
    2022, cut out crimea.
    - inemesitaffia 2y ago
      Not true and still off today. I've not seen anyone claim they used to be able to use equipment in Crimea at some point in the past and now it doesn't work.
    - throwaway290 2y ago
      I believe by the time Starlink arrived in Ukraine Crimea was already occupied and post "referendum" and providing service there would be like providing service to Russia, no?
      - aguaviva 2y ago
        No, because the "referendum" was meaningless and had no effect on the peninsula's sovereignty. Which since 1991 has been and remains Ukrainian.
        throwaway290 2y ago
        my question was rhetorical. it is nonsense to say it was sovereign and at the same time belongs to ukraine since 1991 what it is, is an occupied territory of ukraine fully controlled by russia with russian military on it that's whom starlink service in Crimea would benefit
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> It’s over. And IMO it’s awesome It’s not over precisely because it’s vertically integrated. Buyers want to maintain leverage. SpaceX wants to avoid forced divestiture. Hence the airlines inking deals with AST Mobile, and SpaceX lofting their birds.
CodeArtisan 2y ago
The European Union wants its own satellite network to counter Starlink. It will be build by SpaceRISE, a consortium that include Airbus, Thales, Deutsche Telekom... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRIS%C2%B2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRIS%C2%B2 https://www.spacerise.eu/ https://www.spacerise.eu/ https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-space/iris2-secure-connectivity_en https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-space/iris2-s...
- UltraSane 2y ago
  So between the US, the EU, and China's version of starlink how many satellites will that require? I see Starlink will use 42,000 when fully completed so that is 3 * 42,000?
- bpodgursky 2y ago
  I'm sorry but if you think this has even a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding you need to learn more about the launch and satellite comms industries. This is political posturing, not a plan. I don't want to spend hours typing on this so let's just say this; Arianespace is on the "team", so it's going to launch on Ariane 6, a rocket that was obsolete before it launched (and it was not a successful launch). The idea that you can launch mass on Ariane6 to challenge Starlink is like saying you can win NASCAR on a horse and buggy. I'm not even exaggerating, that is literally the price differential between Starship and the rest. This initiative is a joke.
  - varjag 2y ago
    A6 maiden launch wasn't completely successful but that hardly matters in a debate involving SpaceX.
    - philipwhiuk 2y ago
      What matters more is that it won't launch again until 2025 and will never be cheap to launch due to the expensive SRBs. And ESA knows this - hence the spluttering of paltry funds towards cheaper vehicles.
torlok 2y ago
US tax dollars at work.
cmdli 2y ago
If you are right and Starlink will have no competition, then why would it not be regulated? Generally speaking, monopolies are regulated to prevent price gouging, including natural monopolies. And if its not a monopoly, then clearly the game is not over.
- kaliqt 2y ago
  Because it is not abusing its position. Monopolies are not an inherent bad, they just tend to start abusing their position, and when they do then they get handled. This is more common with public companies than private companies though. Founders have their own life, honor, ethics, desires, etc. which usually help strongly keep the company on a positive track. e.g. Valve Corporation.
  - cmdli 2y ago
    Companies always abuse their position. Its basic capitalism; markets only thrive and are fair when both buyers and sellers have multiple options, and it would be odd to assume this time is the exception.
    - 8n4vidtmkvmk 2y ago
      So start drafting up the policies if they need time, but don't enact them yet. I'm not a fan of the owner, but if the product is good and the price is fair, leave it be until it becomes a problem. Let's not punish innovation.
  - theptip 2y ago
    This is the American model of anti-trust, very much not the European model (which explicitly targets competition for its own sake even when consumers are not harmed by the monopolistic behavior).
  - teamonkey 2y ago
    Just because you like a company (and as a consumer, I like Steam) doesn’t mean it’s not acting monopolistically. Valve is certainly abusing its position. It charges extremely high rents for the services it offers because of its dominance as a marketplace. It does provide a host of services and does them well, but whether they are value for the platform fee is another question. Using those services creates lock-in and friction to port to other platforms. By providing them as part of the package, Steam has extinguished companies that used to provide those services, meaning that it’s even harder to provide the same functionality elsewhere.
doctorpangloss 2y ago
Yeah but if they were like, "Lemme tell you how to provide Internet for boats and Iranians in the most expensive way possible," it doesn't sound like that exciting of a business anymore now does it?
GuB-42 2y ago
I would even go to say that the reason Starlink exists is to use up SpaceX excessive launch capacity. With its idea of building assembly lines and reusable rockets, can launch more stuff than there is market for. So they create their own market. Starlink launches are almost free besides the fuel, as they have rockets lying around that are already paid for. A state-funded competitor could come up though. China for instance may want their own satellite internet for strategic reasons, and fund that. I am sure Russia would be interested too. This in turn, will pay for development of a reusable rocket program.
- panick21_ 2y ago
  Lets cool down a bit. Falcon 9 launches cost much more then 'just the fuel'. Estimated launch price is still 10-20 million $. The Upper stage is an expensive thing to build. Operations cost are also not that low. Fuel cost are only like a couple 100k$. China is deftly building something. Russia doesn't have a snowball chance in hell of building something like Starlink.
7e 2y ago
It's none of that, it's the willingness of Starlink to run at a massive loss.
nickfromseattle 2y ago
Yes, being able to manufacturer and deploy your satellite services at cost is an insurmountable competitive advantage. There is one other player in this space, Rocket Lab. They are 5-10 years behind SpaceX, but are the #2 launched rocket in the USA and 2/3rds of their revenue is from satellite manufacturing. I think something like 25-50% of the non-SpaceX satellites in-operation have a Rocket Lab logo somewhere on the craft. The next step in their vertical integration plan is to launch their own constellation and provide some sort of space-based service. Although it's several years away and pending the scale-up of their medium launch vehicle test flying next year. Their CEO has come to the same conclusion as you. The major space companies of the future have to be vertically integrated if they want to compete. The founder has a pretty cool story. From New Zealand. Built a rocket bike and a rocket pack, but didn't go to college. Being a foreign national without traditional education meant he couldn't work in the space sector due ITAR. So he started Rocket Lab in 2006. Their small lift vehicle (300kg) was the fastest vehicle from first orbit to 50 orbital launches, and tracking to be the fastest to hit 100 orbital launches. Their medium lift vehicle (13,000kg), if it makes orbit next year, will become the most capital efficient ($300m spent) MLV developed, and the fastest MLV to go from announcement to orbit (5ish years). After Rocket Lab and SpaceX, the competition is pretty thin. Blue Origin is launching their HLV (40,000kg) New Glenn for the first time in early 2025 and there are a couple of startup and traditional defense contractor projects, but all unproven. SpaceX is so insanely far ahead of everyone else. They will hit 100+ launches in 2024, Rocket Lab is at 15ish with their 300kg vehicle, and planning to scale their 13,000kg vehicle to 3 launches in 2026, 5 in 2027 and 7 in 2028. New Glenn will be on a similar ramp.
godelski 2y ago
You have it reversed. It’s fair, it’s hard to tell if you haven’t worked in the launch industry. But drive out to Mojave and go talk to the dozens of companies out there. Many of them have reusable designs. But also if you look at the financials, I think many would laugh at the funding many of these companies get when you compare to Silicon Valley. Clear vaporware frequently gets bigger investing. The problem with launch companies is that you have nothing to launch. It’s a vicious coupled system, because it also means you can’t bring prices down to increase the number of launches. You need scale to bring prices down. You can’t implement the Silicon Valley model of run all your competitors (ULA) without dumping 10x down the drain compared to your Uber or Netflix. So the reason it works is because SpaceX is its own customer. You are bootstrapping. The satellite internet idea isn’t even new. I was pitching this to a company I worked for in the early 2010’s (inspired by the brand new planet labs), but what helped was I even found white papers by Qualcomm and others that clearly had the exact same idea. My boss dismissed it because the failures of Celestri, Teledesic, Iridium, and Globealstar. I’m sure this is why I was able to find those white papers too, and very clearly so did SpaceX. The difference here is that SpaceX is a launch company AND has the funding of a billionaire that is willing to take the risk [0]. Imo, the real question is who pitched Kuiper and did they do it before Starlink? It’s a good and obvious idea, so I’d put money down that someone did. I’m pretty sure they’re fucked now as there’s legitimate reasons you want LEO satellite mega constellation to be handled by a monopoly. You just can’t have a dozen of those companies running around. [0] side rant: why the fuck are more billionaires not willing to take big risks. Especially those with at least a billion liquidated from their stock. What’s the point of that money? You’re so wealthy it’s effectively impossible to go broke. The real exception is if your wealth is mostly paper and you’re defrauding people. At 10 billion it basically will not happen even then. If you can stash (not even) 50 million, you never have to work ever again to live in high luxury.
scotty79 2y ago
> The pace of innovation at SpaceX is not THE reason - it’s an additional reason that no one has a snowballs chance in hell of ever catching Starlink. Don't forget over $15bln of tax money they got for doing barely anything so far.
- inemesitaffia 2y ago
  Barely nothing? Are you out of your mind? pLEO, Starshield, SDA, NSSL, Commercial Crew, Commercial Cargo????? Only HLS is in view. And it's less than 5 billion. Everything listed above is delivered and has more expensive alternatives.
  - scotty79 2y ago
    I don't know about everything else but 3bln out of that 15 were supposed to fund entire Moon mission and he burnt through that cash delivering a handful of suborbital empty metal pipes ... sorry, the last one was containing a banana to add insult to injury.
    - inemesitaffia 2y ago
      That's ridiculous. There's no extra money coming. This is a firm fixed price contract. And the original plan was 2028 before Trump changed things. Most of the 15billion is for already delivered deliverables. (You have absolutely nothing to stand on) Blue Origin is also going to the moon and received more money for a smaller lander. Where's their rocket? The Moon lander contract is less than what SpaceX will make from starlink alone in 2024.
- matwood 2y ago
  I think it's important to recognize the irony in how much SpaceX and Tesla benefit from government programs and funds that he now wants to turn off as part of DOGE, but you can't say SpaceX has barely done anything.
  - inemesitaffia 2y ago
fspeech 2y ago
You don't need LEOs to have text direct to cell. You can cover with a lot fewer satellites in higher otbits. China had this since last year, though through special protocols, not LTE, so you need new hardware. But the hardware fits into a regular cell phone.
griomnib 2y ago
I’m sure they have the official MAGATEL licenses ready to go for the FCC as well.
RobotToaster 2y ago
SpaceX bought up competitors like Swarm Technologies to kill them. It's a monopoly engaging in anti-competitive practices, and should be broken up.
- lutorm 2y ago
  Swarm wasn't a competitor to SpaceX at the time, Swarm and Starlink wasn't aiming at the same market at all. And they didn't exactly kill Swarm. They launched Swarm satellites for a while and there was talk of integrating Swarm transceivers on Starlink satellites. I think once direct-to-cell became a reality, the idea of Swarm was subsumed into that project since it should do everything Swarm did but better. It's worth noting that the Swarm founders are now working on the direct-to-cell project.
matco11 2y ago
No. They have already allowed Starlink competitors to launch on Space X rockets. There are multiple players working on constellations of low-orbit satellites competing with Starlink
- the_duke 2y ago
  Sure, but Starlink launches are at-cost, which is much, much cheaper than the cost for external customers. Starlink also has launch priority. Good luck with getting 50 launches a year as a customer...
- irjustin 2y ago
  While you're technically correct, the parent is more correct. Competitors have to pay normal launch rates. The competitive service needs to include those costs to end users. Starlink "pays" for launches at cost. While we don't know what SpaceX's cost margins are, they are not trivial. To setup a low orbit constellation is extremely expensive and competitors lose millions per launch that Starlink gets to reinvest. There's been 136 launches of Falcon 9 for Starlink. ~US$62m per launch? If their margins are 20% that's that's $1.6b in savings. And I bet F9's margins are closer to 50% - supporting Starship and more.
the_duke 2y ago
> SpaceX and Starlink have the same owner To be precise: Starlink is a division of the SpaceX corporation, it's not a separate entity.
hsuduebc2 2y ago
Musk is similar to Henry Ford in that he currently has an advantage due to the innovative nature of his business. However, over time, his ideas will likely be replicated by other businesses or even governments. I'm not entirely convinced that becoming a strong political figure by aligning with one side is a wise long-term strategy. This election was a loss for the opposition, not just because of their poor communication of achievements but also due to the ordinary cycles of politics. People often place blame on those in power for any problems during their tenure. The pendulum of trust will eventually swing back to the other side. Musk's political aspirations also pose a risk for him, as they could jeopardize his relationships with allies within the currently dominant party. What I’m suggesting is that monopolies like this often collapse when they become too politically entrenched, threatening the very power structures that initially enabled their rise and powet accumulation.
mirekrusin 2y ago
Even if you like Elon and his companies monopolies are still bad. He is not going to live forever, somebody else will be in charge sooner or later and that person/group may not adhere to same principles.
- tirant 2y ago
  Monopolies due to the State granting permissions to only one company, or gaining advantages due to coercion or lobbying are indeed terrible. But monopolies due to excellence in the development of the product, like Starlink, are not bad at all. In any case these are extremely rare and tend to last very little time.
WinstonSmith84 2y ago
> there will be no competitors Define the time frame. 1 year? Quite likely. 10 years? nothing is less sure ... But in 50 years, I bet SpaceX doesn't even exist anymore. Companies rises and falls and it's always been like this (and the same applies to Empires, Countries or .. Species). It's always a matter of timeframe
- rock_artist 2y ago
  It'll be interesting for sure. similar to requesting Chrome to become separate from Google, there might some law enforcement scenarios where they'll have to split things.
- ponector 2y ago
  There will be several competitors in 5-10 years. Due to immense military capability of this technology. Same thing happens with GPS.
jonplackett 2y ago
You think it’s awesome that there’s a monopoly? And it’s owned by a single, politically derelict insane man? I agree the pace of change is amazing. I marvel at everything spacex does. The starship catch was ridiculous. But no competition always leads somewhere really bad eventually
- TrapLord_Rhodo 2y ago
  politically derelict? he's not a politician, how can he be derelict? From my perspective he's pretty politically deligent... I think what you mean is you disagree with his policies.
- rm445 2y ago
  A (temporary) monopoly is not as bad in something that wouldn't otherwise exist. If Elon Musk concentrated only on cars, or SpaceX had had another couple of launch failures and gone bust, this functionality might be 40 years away. Not to say you're wrong, we all benefit from competition in the long run. We get it from a level playing field and preventing natural monopolists from locking the gate behind them.
  - jonplackett 2y ago
    I agree a (temporary) monopoly is totally OK. Normal in fact. But the parent comment was specifically celebrating a long term, unassailable monopoly.
    - nwienert 2y ago
      If you read it uncharitably. If you read it charitably, the “it’s awesome” can be referring to how quickly they made something work that otherwise wouldn’t for many more years.
      - jonplackett 2y ago
        > Starlink has a constellation two orders of magnitude bigger than any competitor. It’s over. And IMO it’s awesome I feel like you are being overly charitable. The ‘it’s awesome’ comes directly after the ‘it’s over’ But TBH I’m pretty cyclical at the best of times.
LightBug1 2y ago
Odd. You seem to be overjoyed at the possible birth of a monopoly situation? I think your emotions and tribal instinct would be better served towards something more benign, like football or baseball ... Lest your voting intentions become equally malignant.
- u2sweetie 2y ago
  You seem to have a lot of creativity in your judgements as none of this follows from his comment.
  - mylastattempt 2y ago
    It's litterally the last sentence: ...any competitor. It’s over. And IMO it’s awesome.
  - palata 2y ago
    Can you read this sentence and tell me how none of this follows from it? > SpaceX and Starlink have the same owner, both are private companies, with SpaceX launching 80% of the global space payload last year and rising, and Starlink has a constellation two orders of magnitude bigger than any competitor. It’s over. And IMO it’s awesome. It says: "It's a private monopoly, and IMO it's awesome"
    - u2sweetie 2y ago
      [flagged]
- michaelt 2y ago
  Perhaps they merely mean it's awesome to have one global satellite broadband service, and one semi-affordable launch option, instead of zero which is what we had before?
  - rplnt 2y ago
    This part could have been phrased better in that case. > It’s over. And IMO it’s awesome.
127 2y ago
I would not count China out.
simon_acca 2y ago
SpaceX has no qualms launching competitors constellations, it has done so with Kupier already. Sure the prices might not be quite as good as what Starlink gets but definitely comparable in big-O notation (especially compared to other launch providers).
badpun 2y ago
The conpetition is there already. In Europe you can get satellite Internet for around $40 a month. It’s slower than Starlink (transfer is decent, but the latency is in the hundreds), but much cheaper.
EGreg 2y ago
Angela Merkel is upset that Elon owns 60% of all satellites in space now: https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/22/angela-merkel-expresses-huge-concern-at-elon-musks-us-government-role https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/22/angela-merkel-...
financetechbro 2y ago
There is nothing “awesome” about monopolies

itsoktocry 2y ago

>Folks it’s game set and match, the trophy has been handed over and the crowd has gone home Has this ever been the case in the history of business? It won't be easy, but forever is a long time.

jorvi 2y ago

What a ridiculous comment. You must still be holding long on IBM?

barfingclouds 2y ago

Well competitors are going to have to use SpaceX rockets to get their satellites up. So no matter what SpaceX is winning

LoveMortuus 2y ago

You don't think that Blue Origin could be a competitor? They are quite behind, but they are backed by quite a lot of money, I feel like I remember even hearing news about Blue Origin placing their own internet satellites.

nehal3m 2y ago

Are you Elon? Also monopolies are never awesome.

Taek 2y ago
if you don't want monopolies then you need to create regulations that make it easy for new startups to compete
- nehal3m 2y ago
  I agree, but given Elons current position there is basically no chance that’s going to happen in the next four years.
  - coliveira 2y ago
    The future of the US: 90% of cars will be Tesla (other carmakers will go bankrupt), internet access and space exploration will be monopolized as well.
    - yencabulator 2y ago
      Attempting to make Ford disappear would be a political suicide.
      - coliveira 2y ago
        Yes, Ford will be on that 10% left.
fragmede 2y ago
For the monopolist they are!
- flanked-evergl 2y ago
  Historically they have been even better for consumers than monopolists.
montagg 2y ago
They are when you can regulate the crap out of them to benefit everyone after they’ve benefited from government contracts, FCC governance, an educated population, etc.

modeless 2y ago

I disagree. Starlink is indeed awesome and SpaceX deserves every bit of their success. But there will be competitors eventually, if for no other reason than foreign militaries sponsoring them. There's no inherent reason for this to be a winner takes all market. We can only hope the competitors are half as responsible as SpaceX has been about space debris risk and ensuring the satellites are not visible to the naked eye and don't disrupt astronomy. So far the proposals I've seen have been much worse than Starlink in these areas.

throwing_away 2y ago
I disagree too, but because it will no longer require military budget to start a SpaceX competitor. Pretty soon AI agents could reasonably take a crack at it.
- mmaunder 2y ago
  I’m sure LangGraph has Elon quaking in his boots.
mmaunder 2y ago
Game that out for us. How government innovation competes with a private sector launch company whose main differentiator is lower cost.
- modeless 2y ago
  China is going to do it for sure. It doesn't have to be as efficient as SpaceX if it is massively subsidized for defense purposes. And China is pretty good at building things cheap. On the commercial side Blue Origin has been slow in starting but they are almost ready and will have relatively cheap launches. There are other up and coming private launch competitors too.
  - jimmydoe 2y ago
    Nothing is impossible but it takes time. Based on current disclosed plan, they will have same number of LEOs as SpaceX have today by ~2030; and SpaceX is not slowing down either.

nikkwong 2y ago

My family had starlink installed at a remote house we own for internet access. While we could get it up and running, the connection wasn't reliable and we encountered many issues. When we tried to contact Starlink for help, support was non-existent; sent us to multiple dead ends, and often wasted our times with repairs promised weeks into the future, over and over, which never surfaced. After 8 months of pain, we ended up getting rid of it and moving back to our 6mbps. Starlink is like Elon's other companies. Engineering marvels—where the customer's are merely an annoyance and the means to an end. They are basically hostile to the customer every step of the way; and from what I've seen from Elon—I think this attitude comes right from the top.

UltraSane 2y ago
"and from what I've seen from Elon—I think this attitude comes right from the top." Yep. Tesla infamously doesn't have a Public Relations department ( I assume because he got rejected by a woman who worked there) and “press@twitter.com now auto responds with [poop emoji],” Musk tweeted. Ladies and gentlemen, the richest man in the world!
benjam47 2y ago
I was an early user of Starlink, starting with the original terminal (today I have the 3rd generation high performance terminal). Being in a very rural area in MT where there was never congestion in my cell and I have a very open view of the sky, it has worked well for me since day 1 and has only gotten better with time. Personally, I monitored latency more than speed, as I always had enough speed to do whatever I wanted. When I first started using SL, latency averaged around 100ms (which compared to my previous provider HughesNet was amazing, but was high compared to ground based connections), but today averages around 35ms which is still technically higher than ground based connections, but for all practical purposes for me, is indisguishable from any other internet option, even for online gaming and live video streaming. Although I did not monitor speed as regurarily, it averages around 300Mbps for me. Sometimes it exceeds 400Mbps (I just ran a speed test and got 420Mbps), and it is rarely less than 100Mbps. I have contacted support twice, and always received quick replies. However, based on my monitoring the Starlink Reddit forum, customer support during their beta period did appear to have often been poor. And there was also a period of time where performance was poor in many populated regions as they started opening up the floodgates a bit sooner than they probably should have, resulting in slow speeds for people in many regions, until their satellite launches caught up to demand. However, my impression is that both of these issues have improved significantly since Starlink left beta. I do still see some complaints about customer service, but anecdotally it appears less frequent. My impression is that they have the ability to remotely troubleshoot many hardware issues, and will quickly send a replacement if they can confirm a fault. I do worry about this though, as even a quick reply and a quick hardware replacement means several days of downtime. Speed complaints are almost certainly less frequent than they used to be. I have no doubt that your customer service hell story is true, and if that happened to me I would be just as turned off, but I think that, especially today, that is not the norm. I have considered purchasing a spare terminal as a backup, but I do have some concerns. I have heard that terminals that stay unpowered and unconnected for very long periods of time get too behind on FW updates and essentially become bricked, I don't believe that is the case today but I am not 100% sure. Also, back when there used to be a queue for signing up, it would not have been practical to just set up a new account for the new terminal, but now that the sign up queue is gone, maybe it is an option today. I have not fully researched my options for this redundancy idea.

esaym 2y ago

>I’ve seen talk of competitor satellite networks Swansat anyone? https://web.archive.org/web/20080119080404/http://swansat.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080119080404/http://swansat.co...

dyauspitr 2y ago

It’s awesome but also worrying. Elon is a political timebomb. I wouldn’t put it past him to selectively deny people usage based on political alignment, sex etc. At least for now there are much worse geosynchronous competitors, but some future state where one doesn’t exist is worrying.

hcurtiss 2y ago
Wouldn’t put it past him? Can you offer even a single example?
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  2022, cut out crimea.
  - inemesitaffia 2y ago
    Not true and still off today. I've not seen anyone claim they used to be able to use equipment in Crimea at some point in the past and now it doesn't work.
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    I believe by the time Starlink arrived in Ukraine Crimea was already occupied and post "referendum" and providing service there would be like providing service to Russia, no?
    - aguaviva 2y ago
      No, because the "referendum" was meaningless and had no effect on the peninsula's sovereignty. Which since 1991 has been and remains Ukrainian.
      - throwaway290 2y ago
        my question was rhetorical. it is nonsense to say it was sovereign and at the same time belongs to ukraine since 1991 what it is, is an occupied territory of ukraine fully controlled by russia with russian military on it that's whom starlink service in Crimea would benefit

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> It’s over. And IMO it’s awesome It’s not over precisely because it’s vertically integrated. Buyers want to maintain leverage. SpaceX wants to avoid forced divestiture. Hence the airlines inking deals with AST Mobile, and SpaceX lofting their birds.

CodeArtisan 2y ago

The European Union wants its own satellite network to counter Starlink. It will be build by SpaceRISE, a consortium that include Airbus, Thales, Deutsche Telekom... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRIS%C2%B2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRIS%C2%B2 https://www.spacerise.eu/ https://www.spacerise.eu/ https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-space/iris2-secure-connectivity_en https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-space/iris2-s...

UltraSane 2y ago
So between the US, the EU, and China's version of starlink how many satellites will that require? I see Starlink will use 42,000 when fully completed so that is 3 * 42,000?
bpodgursky 2y ago
I'm sorry but if you think this has even a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding you need to learn more about the launch and satellite comms industries. This is political posturing, not a plan. I don't want to spend hours typing on this so let's just say this; Arianespace is on the "team", so it's going to launch on Ariane 6, a rocket that was obsolete before it launched (and it was not a successful launch). The idea that you can launch mass on Ariane6 to challenge Starlink is like saying you can win NASCAR on a horse and buggy. I'm not even exaggerating, that is literally the price differential between Starship and the rest. This initiative is a joke.
- varjag 2y ago
  A6 maiden launch wasn't completely successful but that hardly matters in a debate involving SpaceX.
  - philipwhiuk 2y ago
    What matters more is that it won't launch again until 2025 and will never be cheap to launch due to the expensive SRBs. And ESA knows this - hence the spluttering of paltry funds towards cheaper vehicles.

torlok 2y ago

US tax dollars at work.

cmdli 2y ago

If you are right and Starlink will have no competition, then why would it not be regulated? Generally speaking, monopolies are regulated to prevent price gouging, including natural monopolies. And if its not a monopoly, then clearly the game is not over.

kaliqt 2y ago
Because it is not abusing its position. Monopolies are not an inherent bad, they just tend to start abusing their position, and when they do then they get handled. This is more common with public companies than private companies though. Founders have their own life, honor, ethics, desires, etc. which usually help strongly keep the company on a positive track. e.g. Valve Corporation.
- cmdli 2y ago
  Companies always abuse their position. Its basic capitalism; markets only thrive and are fair when both buyers and sellers have multiple options, and it would be odd to assume this time is the exception.
  - 8n4vidtmkvmk 2y ago
    So start drafting up the policies if they need time, but don't enact them yet. I'm not a fan of the owner, but if the product is good and the price is fair, leave it be until it becomes a problem. Let's not punish innovation.
- theptip 2y ago
  This is the American model of anti-trust, very much not the European model (which explicitly targets competition for its own sake even when consumers are not harmed by the monopolistic behavior).
- teamonkey 2y ago
  Just because you like a company (and as a consumer, I like Steam) doesn’t mean it’s not acting monopolistically. Valve is certainly abusing its position. It charges extremely high rents for the services it offers because of its dominance as a marketplace. It does provide a host of services and does them well, but whether they are value for the platform fee is another question. Using those services creates lock-in and friction to port to other platforms. By providing them as part of the package, Steam has extinguished companies that used to provide those services, meaning that it’s even harder to provide the same functionality elsewhere.

doctorpangloss 2y ago

Yeah but if they were like, "Lemme tell you how to provide Internet for boats and Iranians in the most expensive way possible," it doesn't sound like that exciting of a business anymore now does it?

GuB-42 2y ago

I would even go to say that the reason Starlink exists is to use up SpaceX excessive launch capacity. With its idea of building assembly lines and reusable rockets, can launch more stuff than there is market for. So they create their own market. Starlink launches are almost free besides the fuel, as they have rockets lying around that are already paid for. A state-funded competitor could come up though. China for instance may want their own satellite internet for strategic reasons, and fund that. I am sure Russia would be interested too. This in turn, will pay for development of a reusable rocket program.

panick21_ 2y ago
Lets cool down a bit. Falcon 9 launches cost much more then 'just the fuel'. Estimated launch price is still 10-20 million $. The Upper stage is an expensive thing to build. Operations cost are also not that low. Fuel cost are only like a couple 100k$. China is deftly building something. Russia doesn't have a snowball chance in hell of building something like Starlink.

7e 2y ago

It's none of that, it's the willingness of Starlink to run at a massive loss.

nickfromseattle 2y ago

Yes, being able to manufacturer and deploy your satellite services at cost is an insurmountable competitive advantage. There is one other player in this space, Rocket Lab. They are 5-10 years behind SpaceX, but are the #2 launched rocket in the USA and 2/3rds of their revenue is from satellite manufacturing. I think something like 25-50% of the non-SpaceX satellites in-operation have a Rocket Lab logo somewhere on the craft. The next step in their vertical integration plan is to launch their own constellation and provide some sort of space-based service. Although it's several years away and pending the scale-up of their medium launch vehicle test flying next year. Their CEO has come to the same conclusion as you. The major space companies of the future have to be vertically integrated if they want to compete. The founder has a pretty cool story. From New Zealand. Built a rocket bike and a rocket pack, but didn't go to college. Being a foreign national without traditional education meant he couldn't work in the space sector due ITAR. So he started Rocket Lab in 2006. Their small lift vehicle (300kg) was the fastest vehicle from first orbit to 50 orbital launches, and tracking to be the fastest to hit 100 orbital launches. Their medium lift vehicle (13,000kg), if it makes orbit next year, will become the most capital efficient ($300m spent) MLV developed, and the fastest MLV to go from announcement to orbit (5ish years). After Rocket Lab and SpaceX, the competition is pretty thin. Blue Origin is launching their HLV (40,000kg) New Glenn for the first time in early 2025 and there are a couple of startup and traditional defense contractor projects, but all unproven. SpaceX is so insanely far ahead of everyone else. They will hit 100+ launches in 2024, Rocket Lab is at 15ish with their 300kg vehicle, and planning to scale their 13,000kg vehicle to 3 launches in 2026, 5 in 2027 and 7 in 2028. New Glenn will be on a similar ramp.

godelski 2y ago

You have it reversed. It’s fair, it’s hard to tell if you haven’t worked in the launch industry. But drive out to Mojave and go talk to the dozens of companies out there. Many of them have reusable designs. But also if you look at the financials, I think many would laugh at the funding many of these companies get when you compare to Silicon Valley. Clear vaporware frequently gets bigger investing. The problem with launch companies is that you have nothing to launch. It’s a vicious coupled system, because it also means you can’t bring prices down to increase the number of launches. You need scale to bring prices down. You can’t implement the Silicon Valley model of run all your competitors (ULA) without dumping 10x down the drain compared to your Uber or Netflix. So the reason it works is because SpaceX is its own customer. You are bootstrapping. The satellite internet idea isn’t even new. I was pitching this to a company I worked for in the early 2010’s (inspired by the brand new planet labs), but what helped was I even found white papers by Qualcomm and others that clearly had the exact same idea. My boss dismissed it because the failures of Celestri, Teledesic, Iridium, and Globealstar. I’m sure this is why I was able to find those white papers too, and very clearly so did SpaceX. The difference here is that SpaceX is a launch company AND has the funding of a billionaire that is willing to take the risk [0]. Imo, the real question is who pitched Kuiper and did they do it before Starlink? It’s a good and obvious idea, so I’d put money down that someone did. I’m pretty sure they’re fucked now as there’s legitimate reasons you want LEO satellite mega constellation to be handled by a monopoly. You just can’t have a dozen of those companies running around. [0] side rant: why the fuck are more billionaires not willing to take big risks. Especially those with at least a billion liquidated from their stock. What’s the point of that money? You’re so wealthy it’s effectively impossible to go broke. The real exception is if your wealth is mostly paper and you’re defrauding people. At 10 billion it basically will not happen even then. If you can stash (not even) 50 million, you never have to work ever again to live in high luxury.

scotty79 2y ago

> The pace of innovation at SpaceX is not THE reason - it’s an additional reason that no one has a snowballs chance in hell of ever catching Starlink. Don't forget over $15bln of tax money they got for doing barely anything so far.

inemesitaffia 2y ago
Barely nothing? Are you out of your mind? pLEO, Starshield, SDA, NSSL, Commercial Crew, Commercial Cargo????? Only HLS is in view. And it's less than 5 billion. Everything listed above is delivered and has more expensive alternatives.
- scotty79 2y ago
  I don't know about everything else but 3bln out of that 15 were supposed to fund entire Moon mission and he burnt through that cash delivering a handful of suborbital empty metal pipes ... sorry, the last one was containing a banana to add insult to injury.
  - inemesitaffia 2y ago
    That's ridiculous. There's no extra money coming. This is a firm fixed price contract. And the original plan was 2028 before Trump changed things. Most of the 15billion is for already delivered deliverables. (You have absolutely nothing to stand on) Blue Origin is also going to the moon and received more money for a smaller lander. Where's their rocket? The Moon lander contract is less than what SpaceX will make from starlink alone in 2024.
matwood 2y ago
I think it's important to recognize the irony in how much SpaceX and Tesla benefit from government programs and funds that he now wants to turn off as part of DOGE, but you can't say SpaceX has barely done anything.
- inemesitaffia 2y ago

fspeech 2y ago

You don't need LEOs to have text direct to cell. You can cover with a lot fewer satellites in higher otbits. China had this since last year, though through special protocols, not LTE, so you need new hardware. But the hardware fits into a regular cell phone.

griomnib 2y ago

I’m sure they have the official MAGATEL licenses ready to go for the FCC as well.

RobotToaster 2y ago

SpaceX bought up competitors like Swarm Technologies to kill them. It's a monopoly engaging in anti-competitive practices, and should be broken up.

lutorm 2y ago
Swarm wasn't a competitor to SpaceX at the time, Swarm and Starlink wasn't aiming at the same market at all. And they didn't exactly kill Swarm. They launched Swarm satellites for a while and there was talk of integrating Swarm transceivers on Starlink satellites. I think once direct-to-cell became a reality, the idea of Swarm was subsumed into that project since it should do everything Swarm did but better. It's worth noting that the Swarm founders are now working on the direct-to-cell project.

matco11 2y ago

No. They have already allowed Starlink competitors to launch on Space X rockets. There are multiple players working on constellations of low-orbit satellites competing with Starlink

the_duke 2y ago
Sure, but Starlink launches are at-cost, which is much, much cheaper than the cost for external customers. Starlink also has launch priority. Good luck with getting 50 launches a year as a customer...
irjustin 2y ago
While you're technically correct, the parent is more correct. Competitors have to pay normal launch rates. The competitive service needs to include those costs to end users. Starlink "pays" for launches at cost. While we don't know what SpaceX's cost margins are, they are not trivial. To setup a low orbit constellation is extremely expensive and competitors lose millions per launch that Starlink gets to reinvest. There's been 136 launches of Falcon 9 for Starlink. ~US$62m per launch? If their margins are 20% that's that's $1.6b in savings. And I bet F9's margins are closer to 50% - supporting Starship and more.

the_duke 2y ago

> SpaceX and Starlink have the same owner To be precise: Starlink is a division of the SpaceX corporation, it's not a separate entity.

hsuduebc2 2y ago

Musk is similar to Henry Ford in that he currently has an advantage due to the innovative nature of his business. However, over time, his ideas will likely be replicated by other businesses or even governments. I'm not entirely convinced that becoming a strong political figure by aligning with one side is a wise long-term strategy. This election was a loss for the opposition, not just because of their poor communication of achievements but also due to the ordinary cycles of politics. People often place blame on those in power for any problems during their tenure. The pendulum of trust will eventually swing back to the other side. Musk's political aspirations also pose a risk for him, as they could jeopardize his relationships with allies within the currently dominant party. What I’m suggesting is that monopolies like this often collapse when they become too politically entrenched, threatening the very power structures that initially enabled their rise and powet accumulation.

mirekrusin 2y ago

Even if you like Elon and his companies monopolies are still bad. He is not going to live forever, somebody else will be in charge sooner or later and that person/group may not adhere to same principles.

tirant 2y ago
Monopolies due to the State granting permissions to only one company, or gaining advantages due to coercion or lobbying are indeed terrible. But monopolies due to excellence in the development of the product, like Starlink, are not bad at all. In any case these are extremely rare and tend to last very little time.

WinstonSmith84 2y ago

> there will be no competitors Define the time frame. 1 year? Quite likely. 10 years? nothing is less sure ... But in 50 years, I bet SpaceX doesn't even exist anymore. Companies rises and falls and it's always been like this (and the same applies to Empires, Countries or .. Species). It's always a matter of timeframe

rock_artist 2y ago
It'll be interesting for sure. similar to requesting Chrome to become separate from Google, there might some law enforcement scenarios where they'll have to split things.
ponector 2y ago
There will be several competitors in 5-10 years. Due to immense military capability of this technology. Same thing happens with GPS.

jonplackett 2y ago

You think it’s awesome that there’s a monopoly? And it’s owned by a single, politically derelict insane man? I agree the pace of change is amazing. I marvel at everything spacex does. The starship catch was ridiculous. But no competition always leads somewhere really bad eventually

TrapLord_Rhodo 2y ago
politically derelict? he's not a politician, how can he be derelict? From my perspective he's pretty politically deligent... I think what you mean is you disagree with his policies.
rm445 2y ago
A (temporary) monopoly is not as bad in something that wouldn't otherwise exist. If Elon Musk concentrated only on cars, or SpaceX had had another couple of launch failures and gone bust, this functionality might be 40 years away. Not to say you're wrong, we all benefit from competition in the long run. We get it from a level playing field and preventing natural monopolists from locking the gate behind them.
- jonplackett 2y ago
  I agree a (temporary) monopoly is totally OK. Normal in fact. But the parent comment was specifically celebrating a long term, unassailable monopoly.
  - nwienert 2y ago
    If you read it uncharitably. If you read it charitably, the “it’s awesome” can be referring to how quickly they made something work that otherwise wouldn’t for many more years.
    - jonplackett 2y ago
      > Starlink has a constellation two orders of magnitude bigger than any competitor. It’s over. And IMO it’s awesome I feel like you are being overly charitable. The ‘it’s awesome’ comes directly after the ‘it’s over’ But TBH I’m pretty cyclical at the best of times.

LightBug1 2y ago

Odd. You seem to be overjoyed at the possible birth of a monopoly situation? I think your emotions and tribal instinct would be better served towards something more benign, like football or baseball ... Lest your voting intentions become equally malignant.

u2sweetie 2y ago
You seem to have a lot of creativity in your judgements as none of this follows from his comment.
- mylastattempt 2y ago
  It's litterally the last sentence: ...any competitor. It’s over. And IMO it’s awesome.
- palata 2y ago
  Can you read this sentence and tell me how none of this follows from it? > SpaceX and Starlink have the same owner, both are private companies, with SpaceX launching 80% of the global space payload last year and rising, and Starlink has a constellation two orders of magnitude bigger than any competitor. It’s over. And IMO it’s awesome. It says: "It's a private monopoly, and IMO it's awesome"
  - u2sweetie 2y ago
    [flagged]
michaelt 2y ago
Perhaps they merely mean it's awesome to have one global satellite broadband service, and one semi-affordable launch option, instead of zero which is what we had before?
- rplnt 2y ago
  This part could have been phrased better in that case. > It’s over. And IMO it’s awesome.

127 2y ago

I would not count China out.

simon_acca 2y ago

SpaceX has no qualms launching competitors constellations, it has done so with Kupier already. Sure the prices might not be quite as good as what Starlink gets but definitely comparable in big-O notation (especially compared to other launch providers).

badpun 2y ago

The conpetition is there already. In Europe you can get satellite Internet for around $40 a month. It’s slower than Starlink (transfer is decent, but the latency is in the hundreds), but much cheaper.

EGreg 2y ago

Angela Merkel is upset that Elon owns 60% of all satellites in space now: https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/22/angela-merkel-expresses-huge-concern-at-elon-musks-us-government-role https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/22/angela-merkel-...

financetechbro 2y ago

There is nothing “awesome” about monopolies