>The problem with this theory is that it incorrectly implies that Florida's Public Records Law offers journalists advantages in writing stories that other states' laws do not. Despite the broad grant of access to police documents that Florida'sopen records law provides, other states' open records laws similarly provide the public with access to arrest records, incident reports, and, although to a lesser extent, mugshots. Other provisions of Florida'sPublic Records Law that contribute to the ease of access to Florida'spublic records compared with other states equivalent laws are largely irrelevant to FloridaMan's existence. Even coupled with the characteristics of Floridaandits residents that many people claim are unique, the open records law-based theory for Florida Man's existence falls short of explaining the phenomenon.
> The datacenter thing is mostly just a meme that billionaires say because it makes them feel smart and gets them media attention, it doesn't seem to move stock significantly.
A significant portion of their valuation is based on this. The spacex private stock price moved significantly based on this data center narrative.
> And for what it concerns shareholders, a strictly worse one than a conventional ISP.
This is ignorance. There is absolutely zero meaningful competition to Starlink in the maritime, aviation, and remote internet markets. 150mbps down with <80ms latency isn’t impressive in a city but it’s mind blowing on an airplane 1000 miles from land.
> The EU is even building their own Starlink equivalent.
No they aren’t. The only somewhat credible competitor so far is Amazon Kuiper(Leo) and they are still nascent.
> There is absolutely zero meaningful competition to Starlink in the maritime, aviation, and remote internet markets.
There are roughly 100,000 ships at sea. There are roughly 15,000 planes in the sky.
The remote internet markets are remote because either A) exceedingly few people live there, or B) exceedingly poor people live there. (And usually, both at the same time)
This just isn't a big market. That's why the telecom giants haven't bothered. To justify a trillion dollar valuation you're gonna need a billion users. SpaceX would be better off putting fiber into the ground in Africa.
> There are roughly 100,000 ships at sea. There are roughly 15,000 planes in the sky.
That’s pretty great for price range of $500-$2000/mo.
> The remote internet markets are remote because either A) exceedingly few people live there, or B) exceedingly poor people live there. (And usually, both at the same time)
This is incorrect. Its usually just places people live that are difficult to reach with good telecom infrastructure because of lower income and/or lack of a good business infrastructure for internet. This includes the US that was frequently over capacity on Starlink in essentially the entire southeastern US for over a year when I was trying to get it there early on.
I suspect you don’t realize that “cell phone coverage” != “good internet”. You usually only need to go about 10-20 miles out of town before all fiber/DSL/cable evaporates. The cell coverage in an area like that isn’t the good kind you get in the city. You’ll get 5-10mbps down and brutal data caps.
Starlink is popular in the Philippines, Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, and even Europe for a reason.
> That's why the telecom giants haven't bothered.
Telecom giants can’t bother because their costs don’t scale the right way due to tech limitations. A LEO sat can provide coverage in remote/sparse places AND coverage in denser money making places all in one orbit. A fiber on the other hand can’t serve the Aleutian chain and then the Congo 15 minutes later.
> To justify a trillion dollar valuation you're gonna need a billion users.
No you don’t. I think you ignored the part of my message about a significant portion of the valuation being from datacenters in space (a yet unproven market).
> SpaceX would be better off putting fiber into the ground in Africa.
No they wouldn’t. This doesn’t work. I recommend you look up why this has failed every time so far and why Africa is served by undersea cables to coastal cities.
Fiber is terrible for places with poor infrastructure. If there aren’t people adequately maintaining a power grid, there sure as hell aren’t people to maintain even more delicate fiber and required last mile infrastructure.
IRIS is a 290 sat constellation that doesn’t have any proven sats in orbit or a user terminal. The capacity even if they deliver what they claim on paper is not a Starlink equivalent.
The tyranny of being in MEO/LEO is that your sats are not overhead at least half of the time.
Lower capacity, higher latency, and worse coverage makes it more of a viasat improvement than anything like a starlink equivalent.
They fumbled by not trying to provide global coverage.
No, this isn't a generational thing, if you don't see the problem with trashing someone's house (let alone doing so to the tune of $12k) that is a comment on your values alone.
But why don't they take the same money and get a cheap industrial unit and build some mock rooms up. Surely it costs the same as hiring and subsequently fixing peoples houses.
If I'm supposed to buy a robot to clean my house, I personally don't want to have to go looking for where the stupid thing has put my cups and plates or whatever whenever it straightens up. I expect there to be a place for all the things and all the things to be put back in place. That's not "er mah gerd the world is ending because millennials am I right!"; that's "your idiot robot can't do the one job I bought it for".
Rein in their margins is probably a better term. I’m a spacex fan but I’m reminded of what happens to every darling leader that crushes competition. It gets complacent, uses shitty tricks to cut out competitors, and raises prices.
I saw this at Google and it’s what will happen to SpaceX (already starting with Starlink pricing) if there isn’t someone to keep the competitive pressure on.
Does anyone know what the fuel level was for the static test fire vs the upcoming mission profile? I want to know how big the explosion for new Glenn would be fully loaded.
Blowing up on the pad is incredibly worse from a design data collection perspective, a risk to life perspective, and a downstream impact to future launches perspective (nobody can use that site for a couple of months).
To be fair the last Starship to blowup on launchpad/ground was less than a year ago. It is a set back but it appears nobody has avoided this issue yet.
Creditors in the US can make visibility into financials a requirement for financing if they want. Protecting creditors isn’t a good argument for public reporting.
What about potential employees, can they look? The local community that consents to let the company build and operate in their town? How does that help, if they don't follow have to follow GAAP anyway?
Why are those things relevant to either employees or a town?
Most of the US is at-will so the financial health of the company is unlikely to be the reason you’ll suddenly lose a job.
Same for a town, if you’re structuring a deal that has counterparty risk then you mitigate the risk. If an employer is just leasing some office space in your town, why in the world would you ever even think you had the need to look at their financials?
As a consumer you are often sending deposits or even the full cost of goods to companies some time before you receive those goods (in effect you become a creditor). You are also dependent upon some of those companies for service and repairs. It seems reasonable that you can check the finances of a company you are creating a business relationship with, I know in the past I've checked company statements.
You are unlikely to have significant enough sway to force that kind of disclosure. Small businesses as consumers have less legal protection and are similarly unlikely to be able to make disclosure a precondition of a deal.
So what. As a customer you can insist on seeing audited financial statements as a condition of purchasing, or purchase from another vendor, or do without. No problem.
Corrupt doesn’t mean “acts without incentives”. If you assume a corrupt system, then the inputs are going to be who has influence over the DOJ. If there is more money to be made by breaking a cartel, then they would absolutely do it.
You’re confusing two independent things. There are simple processes that are extremely capital intensive with long lead times and then there are complex processes that require lots of R&D and industry secrets. Memory is the former in the chip world.
Other examples from outside of tech of easy but capital intensive processes are power generation and railroads. Very easy to do, but easy to end up broken by overbuilding for demand that fails to materialize or stay stable for the duration of your financing.
>The problem with this theory is that it incorrectly implies that Florida's Public Records Law offers journalists advantages in writing stories that other states' laws do not. Despite the broad grant of access to police documents that Florida'sopen records law provides, other states' open records laws similarly provide the public with access to arrest records, incident reports, and, although to a lesser extent, mugshots. Other provisions of Florida'sPublic Records Law that contribute to the ease of access to Florida'spublic records compared with other states equivalent laws are largely irrelevant to FloridaMan's existence. Even coupled with the characteristics of Floridaandits residents that many people claim are unique, the open records law-based theory for Florida Man's existence falls short of explaining the phenomenon.
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