4 ms·

The company that just IPOed is already overwhelmingly "X AI" financially, regardless of the fact that it says "Space X" in the marketing. Whether SpaceX also bu

by 0xffff2 4mo ago

The company that just IPOed is already overwhelmingly "X AI" financially, regardless of the fact that it says "Space X" in the marketing. Whether SpaceX also buys Tesla is hardly even going to move the needle.

iririririr 4mo ago
$10 how "space x" will sell for peanuts the starlink portion to musk and keep only the sinking Ai pieces for the bag holders
- IgorPartola 4mo ago
  StarLink is a bad investment too in my opinion. It is fundamentally a US company that must charge US prices but in the US there are relatively few people who need that tech. Only in more rural areas that are sparsely populated do you not have access to fiber or cable which give better speeds and latency. The majority of their revenue is overseas. But there they can’t reasonably charge $99/month. And there labor and land are cheap such that you can get fiber laid cheaply and quickly.
  - danisth 4mo ago
    Yep, it feels like forever a niche market. As soon as you think about it like fundamental infrastructure (which as I understand it is what we’re supposed to think about) it quickly becomes obvious that cables are better suited. Wealthy enclaves, digital nomads etc will pay for it, but that’s not going to get the revenue they’re hoping for.
    - Fogest 4mo ago
      You mention that cables are better suited... but that is the whole point of Starlink. Getting cables everywhere is either not feasible or expensive. The rural properties are already mentioned as a very big source of usage right now around the world. But you also have everyone who is using it for some mobile purpose. Whether that be planes, boats, RV's, cars, military, etc... I've even seen people live streaming things using Starlink due to cell towers not giving good enough connections where they are. While they may not be ideal or people living in Urban areas, they also aren't limited to selling to people who are physically connected by cable like a regular ISP would be. I think you're underestimating the market here. Especially on the enterprise side when you start thinking of things like airliners, cruise ships, etc...
      - hyperadvanced 4mo ago
        Agreed, starlink is obviously advantageous from the global (and extra-global) perspective. Running cables is expensive. But so is launching satellites, and it’s hard to see how you reach a tipping point where satellites gets cheaper than the standard boring cable networking that supports the terrestrial internet
        fakedang 4mo ago
        When cables not only become expensive but also risky, in an increasingly tense world.
        geertj 4mo ago
        > But so is launching satellites Starship is trying to get launch cost down to $10 per kilogram to low earth orbit. At that cost it is not clear to me that cables are better except for short distance point to point backbones. One other issue with cables is regulation or monopoly.
        eagleal 4mo ago
        There's a limit to orbit at your desired location similar to what real estate is. At some point it becomes scarse and consolidation will happen. At a time when state actors are becoming increasingly non-cooperative, it may not be wise to put all your eggs in someone else's basket.
        hajile 4mo ago
        There are two different questions. Are cables cheaper and is Starlink profitable in the long term? Launching a starlink satellite costs $1.5-2M per satellite for the current design. Each satellite lasts around 5 years and they need 42k of them. Do the math and you get $13B to $17B per year ignoring inflation and ignoring the massive ground infrastructure that is also needed (costing billions more per year). Residential plans range from $55-175/month and will make up almost all subscriptions. Most people will get the $85 middle plan, but we'll round up to $100/mo or $1200/yr. Breaking even with no profit requires 10-15 million subscribers. As starlink claims to have around 12k subscribers and just 10.5k satellites, I'd guess the system is profitable. The cable question is still compelling though. Rural fiber costs around $25k per mile. This means that an average $15B/yr buys 600,000 miles of installed fiber every single year. My conclusion is that the ideal solution would be Starlink keeping total satellites closer to the current 10k number ($4-5B per year) and spending the other $10B/yr running fiber to new areas. Their subscriber base would drop as new fiber got installed in rural areas overlooked as "not profitable enough", but stabilize at still profitable enough from travelers and truly inaccessible places.
    - davnicwil 4mo ago
      I think there's a strong chance this is a case of it creating a whole new market though. There are people whose current behaviour/situations will happen to benefit from this, and that may be a niche, but seems like there's a really solid chance many more people actually will change their behaviour in response to this being available. That's how disruption happens. To be honest I can easily see the default changing if the service is good enough. I mean it seems like you basically get most of what is good about wired plus a whole load of extra previously totally unavailable benefits. For a price, to be sure, but that'll come down.
  - sneak 4mo ago
    What a terrible take. There is a huge market even just in the US for Starlink. The worldwide market for people who need internet access in remote places is positively gigantic. Additionally, Starlink could be hugely profitable if they exclusively sold access to ships and aircraft. You'll never be able to run fiber to those. They can indeed reasonably charge $99/month to many many millions worldwide who don't have any options for low latency, high speed internet access. You vastly underestimate the need for the service.
    - gorgoiler 4mo ago
      On the one hand you have a technology product that’s only relevant to rural consumers. Nine out of ten people have cable already. On the other hand your margins are amazing because all you do is fly little boxes over everyone’s heads launched with government subsidized rockets. No linemen or plant-hire or contractors to sap your profits. The biggest threat would be commoditized terrestrial wifi / 5G. The more cell service competition there is, the smaller the market for satellite, until it’s only applicable to 1% of the population (and the poorest 1% at that.)
      - Gud 4mo ago
        No it’s not. I flew from Zürich to Bangalore via Qatar and both flights had starlink. There are many many uses for it, besides rural homes.
        johntiger1 4mo ago
        Yeah i'm no fan of Elon but starlink is actually quite useful. It solves a real problem - I need network access anywhere on the globe, for any reason, at any time. they can easily charge what they wish for that (military, air travel, desert tourists etc.)
      - simondotau 4mo ago
        > Nine out of ten people have cable already. More like 8.2 out of ten. Either way the remainder is still a pretty decent market. And that's just talking about people in the USA. About 75% of Starlink subscribers are outside the USA. > and the poorest 1% at that Not by a lot. People who live in remote areas in the USA tend to have much less money overall, but they tend to spend much less money overall, leading to a similar amount of buying power. Someone who lives remote is more likely to own their home outright or have a relatively small mortgage. Their socio-economic status can appear numerically depressed because the numbers generally don't account for non-monetary consumption. (You got paid a salary and bought salmon from the supermarket. Remote dude fishes for salmon in a local stream. You both traded your time for salmon, but remote dude's salmon is invisible to GDP statistics.) And furthermore, for them, Starlink would be budgeted for like an essential service rather than a luxury convenience.
  - TomK32 4mo ago
    StarLink is the only thing about SpaceX that makes a profit. But that's only possible because no one else has a network up there hence it can ask for any price it want. Let's not forget that before StarLink there was Iridium and it got ousted because there was a better offer and I wouldn't be surprised if some other company will eventually go up with a better offer.
    - adastra22 4mo ago
      Uh, all of SpaceX’s launch business has been insanely profitable since 2010. They basically own the entire global launch market with huge margins.
      - Unit327 4mo ago
        They aren't in the black at all, let alone "insanely" so. Maybe if they just did commercial launches on falcon 9, but instead they've been shoveling those "huge margins" straight back into r&d on starship etc.
        MrBuddyCasino 4mo ago
        So they’re playing the long game, building a moat, creating lasting value with the cash surplus, just like Jeff Bezos did. If anything this should make you more bullish.
        geertj 4mo ago
        The Falcon launch business is profitable on its own, which may be what GP meant. Once you include the ~$3 billion in Starship yearly R&D the space segment goes into the red.
        adastra22 4mo ago
        It is what I meant. SpaceX has strong division between its operational and R&D arms, and Falcon launch has been insanely profitable from the first F9, even before reuse dropped their costs like a rock. They just invest those operating profits back into the company.
  - wafflemaker 4mo ago
    Starlink guided drones are tipping the scales for Ukraine right now. That's what enables the range required to successfully hit trains and fuel trucks supplying Crimea through the "land bridge" made from conquered lands in South Ukraine. That plus satellite comms. Both Russia and Ukraine were very fond of how it improves communication. Edit: meant to say that in the time of global instability, weapons tech is going to be valuable.
    - hajile 4mo ago
      This is putting the world at risk of Kessler Syndrome.
      - defrost 4mo ago
        Not so much Ukraine using drones that use starlink, more the sheer number of starlink sats up and planned, the numbers in the proposed other constellations going up and planned, and the ongoing propensity of Chinese rockets to fragment after use rather than safely de orbit. For interest: An Orbital House of Cards: Frequent Megaconstellation Close Conjunctions (2025) Our calculations show the CRASH Clock is currently 5.5 days, which suggests there is limited time to recover from a wide-spread disruptive event, such as a solar storm. This is in stark contrast to the pre-megaconstellation era: in 2018, the CRASH Clock was 164 days. ~ https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09643 https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09643
  - xp84 4mo ago
    > labor and land are cheap such that you can get fiber laid cheaply and quickly. Which is why all of sub-saharan Africa is crisscrossed in fiber, and every hut in those villages has an ONT zip-tied to the straw walls where they get their symmetrical gigabit service.

by 0xffff2 4mo ago

iririririr 4mo ago

$10 how "space x" will sell for peanuts the starlink portion to musk and keep only the sinking Ai pieces for the bag holders

IgorPartola 4mo ago
StarLink is a bad investment too in my opinion. It is fundamentally a US company that must charge US prices but in the US there are relatively few people who need that tech. Only in more rural areas that are sparsely populated do you not have access to fiber or cable which give better speeds and latency. The majority of their revenue is overseas. But there they can’t reasonably charge $99/month. And there labor and land are cheap such that you can get fiber laid cheaply and quickly.
- danisth 4mo ago
  Yep, it feels like forever a niche market. As soon as you think about it like fundamental infrastructure (which as I understand it is what we’re supposed to think about) it quickly becomes obvious that cables are better suited. Wealthy enclaves, digital nomads etc will pay for it, but that’s not going to get the revenue they’re hoping for.
  - Fogest 4mo ago
    You mention that cables are better suited... but that is the whole point of Starlink. Getting cables everywhere is either not feasible or expensive. The rural properties are already mentioned as a very big source of usage right now around the world. But you also have everyone who is using it for some mobile purpose. Whether that be planes, boats, RV's, cars, military, etc... I've even seen people live streaming things using Starlink due to cell towers not giving good enough connections where they are. While they may not be ideal or people living in Urban areas, they also aren't limited to selling to people who are physically connected by cable like a regular ISP would be. I think you're underestimating the market here. Especially on the enterprise side when you start thinking of things like airliners, cruise ships, etc...
    - hyperadvanced 4mo ago
      Agreed, starlink is obviously advantageous from the global (and extra-global) perspective. Running cables is expensive. But so is launching satellites, and it’s hard to see how you reach a tipping point where satellites gets cheaper than the standard boring cable networking that supports the terrestrial internet
      - fakedang 4mo ago
        When cables not only become expensive but also risky, in an increasingly tense world.
      - geertj 4mo ago
        > But so is launching satellites Starship is trying to get launch cost down to $10 per kilogram to low earth orbit. At that cost it is not clear to me that cables are better except for short distance point to point backbones. One other issue with cables is regulation or monopoly.
        eagleal 4mo ago
        There's a limit to orbit at your desired location similar to what real estate is. At some point it becomes scarse and consolidation will happen. At a time when state actors are becoming increasingly non-cooperative, it may not be wise to put all your eggs in someone else's basket.
        hajile 4mo ago
        There are two different questions. Are cables cheaper and is Starlink profitable in the long term? Launching a starlink satellite costs $1.5-2M per satellite for the current design. Each satellite lasts around 5 years and they need 42k of them. Do the math and you get $13B to $17B per year ignoring inflation and ignoring the massive ground infrastructure that is also needed (costing billions more per year). Residential plans range from $55-175/month and will make up almost all subscriptions. Most people will get the $85 middle plan, but we'll round up to $100/mo or $1200/yr. Breaking even with no profit requires 10-15 million subscribers. As starlink claims to have around 12k subscribers and just 10.5k satellites, I'd guess the system is profitable. The cable question is still compelling though. Rural fiber costs around $25k per mile. This means that an average $15B/yr buys 600,000 miles of installed fiber every single year. My conclusion is that the ideal solution would be Starlink keeping total satellites closer to the current 10k number ($4-5B per year) and spending the other $10B/yr running fiber to new areas. Their subscriber base would drop as new fiber got installed in rural areas overlooked as "not profitable enough", but stabilize at still profitable enough from travelers and truly inaccessible places.
  - davnicwil 4mo ago
    I think there's a strong chance this is a case of it creating a whole new market though. There are people whose current behaviour/situations will happen to benefit from this, and that may be a niche, but seems like there's a really solid chance many more people actually will change their behaviour in response to this being available. That's how disruption happens. To be honest I can easily see the default changing if the service is good enough. I mean it seems like you basically get most of what is good about wired plus a whole load of extra previously totally unavailable benefits. For a price, to be sure, but that'll come down.
- sneak 4mo ago
  What a terrible take. There is a huge market even just in the US for Starlink. The worldwide market for people who need internet access in remote places is positively gigantic. Additionally, Starlink could be hugely profitable if they exclusively sold access to ships and aircraft. You'll never be able to run fiber to those. They can indeed reasonably charge $99/month to many many millions worldwide who don't have any options for low latency, high speed internet access. You vastly underestimate the need for the service.
  - gorgoiler 4mo ago
    On the one hand you have a technology product that’s only relevant to rural consumers. Nine out of ten people have cable already. On the other hand your margins are amazing because all you do is fly little boxes over everyone’s heads launched with government subsidized rockets. No linemen or plant-hire or contractors to sap your profits. The biggest threat would be commoditized terrestrial wifi / 5G. The more cell service competition there is, the smaller the market for satellite, until it’s only applicable to 1% of the population (and the poorest 1% at that.)
    - Gud 4mo ago
      No it’s not. I flew from Zürich to Bangalore via Qatar and both flights had starlink. There are many many uses for it, besides rural homes.
      - johntiger1 4mo ago
        Yeah i'm no fan of Elon but starlink is actually quite useful. It solves a real problem - I need network access anywhere on the globe, for any reason, at any time. they can easily charge what they wish for that (military, air travel, desert tourists etc.)
    - simondotau 4mo ago
      > Nine out of ten people have cable already. More like 8.2 out of ten. Either way the remainder is still a pretty decent market. And that's just talking about people in the USA. About 75% of Starlink subscribers are outside the USA. > and the poorest 1% at that Not by a lot. People who live in remote areas in the USA tend to have much less money overall, but they tend to spend much less money overall, leading to a similar amount of buying power. Someone who lives remote is more likely to own their home outright or have a relatively small mortgage. Their socio-economic status can appear numerically depressed because the numbers generally don't account for non-monetary consumption. (You got paid a salary and bought salmon from the supermarket. Remote dude fishes for salmon in a local stream. You both traded your time for salmon, but remote dude's salmon is invisible to GDP statistics.) And furthermore, for them, Starlink would be budgeted for like an essential service rather than a luxury convenience.
- TomK32 4mo ago
  StarLink is the only thing about SpaceX that makes a profit. But that's only possible because no one else has a network up there hence it can ask for any price it want. Let's not forget that before StarLink there was Iridium and it got ousted because there was a better offer and I wouldn't be surprised if some other company will eventually go up with a better offer.
  - adastra22 4mo ago
    Uh, all of SpaceX’s launch business has been insanely profitable since 2010. They basically own the entire global launch market with huge margins.
    - Unit327 4mo ago
      They aren't in the black at all, let alone "insanely" so. Maybe if they just did commercial launches on falcon 9, but instead they've been shoveling those "huge margins" straight back into r&d on starship etc.
      - MrBuddyCasino 4mo ago
        So they’re playing the long game, building a moat, creating lasting value with the cash surplus, just like Jeff Bezos did. If anything this should make you more bullish.
      - geertj 4mo ago
        The Falcon launch business is profitable on its own, which may be what GP meant. Once you include the ~$3 billion in Starship yearly R&D the space segment goes into the red.
        adastra22 4mo ago
        It is what I meant. SpaceX has strong division between its operational and R&D arms, and Falcon launch has been insanely profitable from the first F9, even before reuse dropped their costs like a rock. They just invest those operating profits back into the company.
- wafflemaker 4mo ago
  Starlink guided drones are tipping the scales for Ukraine right now. That's what enables the range required to successfully hit trains and fuel trucks supplying Crimea through the "land bridge" made from conquered lands in South Ukraine. That plus satellite comms. Both Russia and Ukraine were very fond of how it improves communication. Edit: meant to say that in the time of global instability, weapons tech is going to be valuable.
  - hajile 4mo ago
    This is putting the world at risk of Kessler Syndrome.
    - defrost 4mo ago
      Not so much Ukraine using drones that use starlink, more the sheer number of starlink sats up and planned, the numbers in the proposed other constellations going up and planned, and the ongoing propensity of Chinese rockets to fragment after use rather than safely de orbit. For interest: An Orbital House of Cards: Frequent Megaconstellation Close Conjunctions (2025) Our calculations show the CRASH Clock is currently 5.5 days, which suggests there is limited time to recover from a wide-spread disruptive event, such as a solar storm. This is in stark contrast to the pre-megaconstellation era: in 2018, the CRASH Clock was 164 days. ~ https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09643 https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09643
- xp84 4mo ago
  > labor and land are cheap such that you can get fiber laid cheaply and quickly. Which is why all of sub-saharan Africa is crisscrossed in fiber, and every hut in those villages has an ONT zip-tied to the straw walls where they get their symmetrical gigabit service.