Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

>more and more rural regions around the world are wired for fiber.

Ecuador has the highest rate of cell phone ownership in the world, because they never built landlines and just went straight to wireless.

Same with electricity in many African countries -no grid, straight to local solar.

When I see comments like this it’s obvious you’re talking about West Virginia or Nevada as “rural regions around the world”

Go spend time in the Canadian arctic, the Congo, Sudan, Bolivia, Mongolia, Remote Australia and dozens and dozens more if you want to see where starlink shines and is rapidly changing the world.

 help



ok but that just makes Starlink even more unprofitable, as now you're limited by the number of customers.

The moment these people incorporate into a village, it becomes more profitable to build a fiber connection. Fiber will eventually get to Ecuador.


Starlink was never supposed to be for anyone that can have fibre.

There are billions of potential customers.


lol no. There are probably 50-100 million potential customers. The rural farmer in India isn't going to buy Starlink.

Every analyst ever said cell phones wouldn’t take off across Africa because there isn’t enough money.

They were all completely wrong.


Since we're talking about something completely different, what about food? Did every analyst predict people would want food?

A limited total addressable market doesn't necessarily have anything to do with profit potential.



Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: