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hughes 1 minutes ago [-]
[delayed]
khurs 36 minutes ago [-]
There will be many price increases seeing as:
-SpaceX raised $75bn in the IPO which will only last so long for a loss making high capital requirements company.
-Then $25bn via bonds which have an annual interest rate repayment of $1.46 billion + repayment of the $25b (depending on bond length in years 2031,33,36,46 and 2056)
-Morgan Stanley said: "In our model, we estimate SpaceX raising an average of $72bn annually between 2027 and 2030 and then an average of $95bn annually between 2031 and 2034."[0]
SpaceX stock has also dropped below their IPO price. It doesn't change their current financials but it may make it more difficult to raise money in the future.
khurs 23 minutes ago [-]
Will be interesting to see if Elon regrets only floating 4% [0] of the company at the IPO and not more seeing as it was over subscribed.
does low float and high demand drive the price up? the article just says more volatility which makes sense, but over subscribed would make me think it would have a higher price. Everyone is already bailing on their positions?
prodigycorp 4 minutes ago [-]
yep
tcp_handshaker 14 minutes ago [-]
You missing the point...the 4% that is what caused the artificial scarcity.
khurs 5 minutes ago [-]
Slightly over subscribed would say yes, but vastly over subscribed indicates they went too low?
jamie_ca 21 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, up 50% over 5 days, back down to the starting line over the next 30 isn't a great outlook to my eye.
BoppreH 59 minutes ago [-]
Note that this is for the "aviation plan" which already requires six-digits equipment.
throwitaway222 23 minutes ago [-]
Starlink should probably reverse course on this however, it's one thing to pay 10k for up to 20 guests on a small private jet vs a company like Delta with a fleet of 747s. Charge Delta 20k, charge this guy 10k.
theturtletalks 8 minutes ago [-]
Why would they not charge as much as possible? Who else is launching satellites? He’s got one of the biggest moats I’ve ever seen.
Rebelgecko 39 minutes ago [-]
They also recently doubled the price of the standby plan
vel0city 52 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, for regular people they're just starting to suddenly charge $1,500 fees.
> He then reviewed my billing history and account details, confirmed that my service address had never actually changed, and determined that nothing had been moved. As a result, he issued a full refund.
vel0city 27 minutes ago [-]
So not his service address, but a slightly different latitude/longitude would have received that.
BoorishBears 35 minutes ago [-]
Yeah but it still sounds like $1,500 demand fee was not a mistake, charging OP was the mistake.
People first mentioned these fees at like $100... now you can go to Costco, grab a Starlink, and they'll randomly ask for $1,500 to actually start service.
Congestion is a thing when each node needs to go to space, but it also feels like they're cashing in on years of "just move to a cabin in the woods and work off Starlink"... once you've done that they have you by the balls even worse than a typical ISP.
wat10000 28 minutes ago [-]
Isn't this fee specifically before they have you by the balls?
BoorishBears 20 minutes ago [-]
Not unless you had a potential $1500 fee top of mind before you moved...
Wanna guess if Starlink is advertising how insane these fees have gotten?
naturalmovement 19 minutes ago [-]
If you're privileged enough to work a six-figure tech job while engaging in a homesteader larp in a "cabin in the woods", you can probably afford the fee. So can "off-grid" YouTuber grifters.
It's like everyone feels entitled to something they didn't know existed a few years ago.
0cf8612b2e1e 11 minutes ago [-]
People feel entitled to the advertised rate structure. Was there anywhere in the promo material that you might get slapped with $1500 connection fees?
If you are not big tech, that’s a lot of money. For the home in the middle of nowhere, $1500 could be more than you would pay in monthly rent. Plenty of rural people without access to good internet were hoping for Starlink to save them from garbage DSL connection options.
naturalmovement 5 minutes ago [-]
Boo hoo.... these same people were previously faced with $40,000 connection fees for Comcast and Verizon to trench a cable 1/2 mile to their property so $1500 seems like a pittance.
Look, friends of mine did this, they bought a country place so they can live the dream and write software in the sticks.
Next thing you know they're drilling new wells and installing a generator to support the fantasy while the bills pile up. When you bring modern conveniences to rural life it costs money.
Cyberdogs7 14 minutes ago [-]
So we should let companies do what ever anti-consumer practices they want, because you don't like the group they are doing it to?
Should a car company be allowed to charge you an extra fee every time you have a passenger?
naturalmovement 11 minutes ago [-]
If you need a specialized amphibious vehicle to get to your shack in the woods, it's not anti-consumer if it costs you more than a Mitsubishi Mirage.
ben_w 4 minutes ago [-]
A few days ago people were
telling me the Starlink was brilliant because it gave small African villages with no mains electricity an internet connection to share.
This kind of behaviour does rather dampen the value proposition for such people.
0cf8612b2e1e 8 minutes ago [-]
The world is more than rich tech bros living in the woods. Normal income people also wanted to use this service without being bankrupted.
Rural homes do have roads that can be reached on a rusty pickup.
cortesoft 25 minutes ago [-]
It sounds like this was a bug where slight updates to geolocation data (his address updated its physical location, probably to be more accurate) triggered a "location moved" process. Annoying, but not indicative of a new policy.
engineer_22 45 minutes ago [-]
Furnishing low-latency, broadband connectivity to private aircraft. The Challenger 350 noted in the article stickers north of $10M
toomuchtodo 42 minutes ago [-]
They are attempting to juice revenue across all product cohorts, this is simply another datapoint. Customers are captive until there are more connectivity options.
nelsonic 20 minutes ago [-]
“Juice?”
As in they have the best product by a wide margin and are charging a totally fair price for it that reflects demand.
Nobody flying private cares about the price of Starlink.
It’s worse if they are squeezing people in underserved rural areas… our monthly has gone down from €35 to €29 and still getting the same speed.
The second SpaceX offers direct-to-cell in our area we will switch to their service as we’ve never had any issues with it whereas the incumbent mobile/broadband providers regularly throttle even when we’re paying top tier prices.
Totally agree there needs to be more competition and preferably not from other billionaires … but until then, Starlink is great!
toomuchtodo 17 minutes ago [-]
SpaceX has a monopoly on high speed satellite internet. They will extract as much as they can from customers with said monopoly until there is a competitor. Doesn't sound like we're talking past each other except perhaps you might be a fan and I am not (specifically, extractionist monopolist behavior).
napierzaza 32 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
theturtletalks 10 minutes ago [-]
What’s even more concerning is that the current government changed their requirements for the rural broadband program so companies like StarLink can bid to bring internet to those remote areas instead of using wired or fiber connections. Not far-fetched that StarLink wins this contract and then squeezes those customers over time. ISPs will have little reason to expand in those underserved areas without government subsidies.
justapassenger 45 minutes ago [-]
I’m pretty sure rest of starlink customers will get similar treatment in the future. Their potential customer base is limited and it’s only ISP that literately burns their backbone network every few years and has to replace to keep it running.
On top of that, their claims it’s profitable does some heavy lifting with how to account for the cost of launching rockets.
It’s extremely cool product and very useful for many customers. But sustainability of current pricing is very questionable.
latchkey 42 minutes ago [-]
it has already gone up in price two times since i got mine. i still happily pay for the convenience and safety of having internet on my campervan in the middle of a national forest. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
mauvehaus 31 minutes ago [-]
What harm are you worried about coming to in the middle of a national forest that having the internet could possibly save you from? You're in a van, for heaven's sakes. You can roll up the windows, lock the doors, and/or drive off from most dangers save a breakdown or a wildfire, and the internet won't save you from a wildfire.
I've tent camped a lot on forest service land (and BLM land) both out west and in the east. Generally having arrived there by human power. Not once have I been confronted with a situation where the internet would've added to my safety in any way whatsoever.
scottyah 16 minutes ago [-]
You really can't think of ANY situations that might be helped with instant communication with the outside world? If that's true, please don't go into national forests or BLMs anymore, I don't want my taxes to be spent looking for your body.
bakies 9 minutes ago [-]
also all the flagship phones have emergency satellite connections now, so it's not even the emergency bit, it's just about having full broadband internet
1234letshaveatw 20 minutes ago [-]
Same. I also have never been confronted with a situation where 911 would've added to my safety in any way whatsoever. Why does 911 even exist?
latchkey 18 minutes ago [-]
see below. 911 just saved my life. not even counting the amount of pain i was in. i had internal bleeding and ended up need transfusions due to my red blood cell count dropping below 7.
1234letshaveatw 14 minutes ago [-]
Sorry, that didn't happen to me directly, doesn't count
latchkey 21 minutes ago [-]
i can think of 1000 reasons to need to call for help. heck, two months ago i fell on my skateboard and shattered my femur at the hip. it sure was nice to be able to call 911 and have someone come pick me up given that i couldn't drive anywhere. my van was parked right at the skatepark and there was no way i was going to drive. obviously not skating in a national park, but it isn't out of the question to not have a major injury in a remote location.
but it isn't just about harm, as i said "convenience". i like being able to download detailed maps for trail hiking on-demand, and being off-grid and still able to be working (as my job requires me to be online).
runarberg 9 minutes ago [-]
If American infrastructure is in such a bad shape that it requires starlink to make emergency calls, then I think we have bigger problems.
And please, when you go hiking, download and print all the maps you need before you depart, and share a detailed plan with somebody able to call help, including a time estimate where you will make contact.
As for work. Please just take time off and take a proper vacation. By being constantly on call you will burn out at a much faster rate.
runarberg 15 minutes ago [-]
I also don’t get the convenience part. If you are in a national forest, put on your boots, open the door and go for a walk, breathe the fresh air and touch some grass. Why is a low latency high speed internet connection convenient in this setting, you should be happy to be able to send text messages and make phone calls, as I assume you‘ll be spending most of your time enjoying nature or sitting around the campfire.
latchkey 5 minutes ago [-]
i'm in a campervan... i can be off-grid for many weeks and i also have a $dayjob.
starlink enables me to get the best of both worlds, which is a huge reason why i love it so much.
grim_io 30 minutes ago [-]
At some point, everyone becomes price-sensitive.
latchkey 20 minutes ago [-]
"everyone" seems like a stretch of imagination. i'm not rich, but i'd still pay 2x (the amount mentioned) what i'm paying now.
grim_io 19 minutes ago [-]
So you are two more 2x increases from cancelling? :D
comment edited from one 2x increase, because math and language are hard.
mattmaroon 44 minutes ago [-]
Their potential customer base is literally everybody because they are the only ISP that can cover the entire globe. Everybody’s potential customer base is technically limited because there are only so many humans, but they have the least limited potential customer base of anything that exists.
justapassenger 37 minutes ago [-]
For any dense populated area, starlink cost explodes exponentially to support customers there, while fiber/5G is linear.
You cannot just put more satellites on top of cities, as they aren’t geostationary (which is why they’re fast), so you need to add insane amount of satellites, that would do nothing most of the time, when they’re not on top of densely populated area.
ruszki 8 minutes ago [-]
First, they would need global coverage for that. Because looking at this map tells a different story: https://starlink.com/gb/map
It’s still the best option, but far from “global”. Also Iran is an obvious lie with that “coming soon” color, so god knows what else isn’t true on this.
kingleopold 9 minutes ago [-]
At some point in next decade they can literally be the biggest ISP by far, insane potential always. It's all about how long it takes to get there
novafunc 37 minutes ago [-]
Yes, but the primary reason for Starlink is for areas with poor traditional ISPs.
If you had a choice between Fiber or Starlink, you’d choose Fiber.
So as traditional ISPs improve service and coverage, Starlink becomes less in demand.
StephenMelon 28 minutes ago [-]
The killer app is military usage, so they just need enough consumer and b2b demand to keep what they charge governments within what they can justify to taxpayers
Alpha3031 8 minutes ago [-]
Which militaries are you thinking and how much do you anticipate them spending and/or being willing to try and justify?
grim_io 31 minutes ago [-]
Sounds like a great long-term investment.
Starlink would only make sense if the world was not getting more and more concentrated around densely populated areas.
scottyah 13 minutes ago [-]
I think it'd be easier for Starlink to start building and deploying wide area ground stations (like 5g towers or something) to serve urban areas than it would take all the other telcos to deploy satellites.
Alpha3031 6 minutes ago [-]
Why in the world would any MNO or WISP choose satellite backhaul for urban areas when their next tower is presumably only a few kilometres over (as opposed to tens of kilometres in more regional areas)?
bakies 8 minutes ago [-]
if you're in a city (where most people live) it'll never be cheaper to get this than fiber
36 minutes ago [-]
35 minutes ago [-]
delichon 47 minutes ago [-]
At the other end they recently doubled the cost of the Starlink Mini standby plan, from $60 to $120 per year.
palmotea 2 minutes ago [-]
> At the other end they recently doubled the cost of the Starlink Mini standby plan, from $60 to $120 per year.
I kinda wanted to get one of those for standby, but the price seemed too good to be true, so I figured they'd either eliminate it or raise the price.
rsyring 39 minutes ago [-]
I have a Starlink v2 dish and I pay $10 per month for a residential "standby" plan.
I only get 10G per month of bandwidth but I rarely use it since I have a fiber connection that is mostly reliable.
It might be a grandfathered plan because they don't list it anywhere I can see:
And, apparently, I now have to reactivate the service to one of the published plans if I want to use more than low-speed data. Previously, I still had high-speed bandwidth for $10 a month just not a lot of it.
They apparently changed things recently. And, now that I'm thinking about it, I probably skimmed an email that said something about this a month or two ago but, since the charge was staying at $10 a month, didn't pay much attention to the details.
throwitaway222 19 minutes ago [-]
I noticed this too, but decided to keep my mini because I downgraded my max plan (I was defaulted to this as a customer since they started) to a bitrate I still won't reach, and by doing so am saving $480 per year.
jameskraus 41 minutes ago [-]
It is an reckless business practice to not have the monthly price locked down, with strong contractual protections. Sounds like Correnti didn't negotiate well and are now finding out.
e_i_pi_2 37 minutes ago [-]
Agreed with this, and it also doesn't seem like this is the case but I'm generally a fan of charging B2B as high as possible to lower costs for regular consumers - other companies will generally pay a lot more even if it just includes the potential of getting better support, and that profit can be used to give access to more people at a lower price.
A lot of open source software uses this model - free for everyone, but if you're a company that wants support then you have to pay for it, and that covers the development for everyone
smt88 34 minutes ago [-]
The aviation pricing will be passed to consumers either way, as increased fares or in-flight fees.
w10-1 33 minutes ago [-]
> Sounds like Correnti didn't negotiate well
Are you sure this is negotiable?
HarHarVeryFunny 1 minutes ago [-]
Everything is potentially negotiable.
Price on things like kitchen appliances, furniture often negotiable - you just have to ask.
My wife: (good customer) if I guy two pairs of shoes I want 2nd pair at 50% - them "ok"
My wife: what will you give me if I buy this (expensive briefcase)? - them "$100 gift card"
I got an extra $150 of a sheepskin coat at a going out of business sale just by asking
jameskraus 10 minutes ago [-]
If price protection for something like this isn't negotiable it's a huge business risk, which would also be reckless to take on.
p-o 60 minutes ago [-]
Hard to not look at the crazy valuation of SpaceX and not see a correlation. At some point, something's gotta give.
idontwantthis 54 minutes ago [-]
Unfortunately, their valuation has almost nothing to do with starlink revenues. It’s almost entirely speculative oribital data centers that have not been invented yet. They could double their starlink revenues and it would have no impact on the valuation.
whatisthiseven 43 minutes ago [-]
Might as well base the valuation on SpaceX getting a colony to Alpha Centauri and then billions living there and needing regular SpaceX shuttle services from Sol.
Then we could properly value the IPO in the quadrillions. (I know you know this is ridiculous. But investors clearly are riding high on the tulip mania).
arijun 35 minutes ago [-]
I disagree, but not for the reason you think. They need to fund R&D to justify their high valuation. A new stock issue would decrease the valuation, and they will have a difficult time borrowing the money with their poor bond valuations. So this will (maybe) slow the bleed.
Musk doesn't need to deliver to keep valuation up. We've seen him doing pretty well stringing people along indefinitely with "3 months maybe, 6 months definitely" self driving capabilities.
idontwantthis 32 minutes ago [-]
It’s not an opinion it’s laid out clearly in the prospectus. Spacex is not a space company. It is a 2 trillion dollar AI company with a small launch business and a smaller ISP.
arijun 29 minutes ago [-]
I am not disagreeing with that. I am saying that having enough revenue is necessary to keep the house of cards standing.
epistasis 40 minutes ago [-]
In the meantime, until Musk comes up with the next big "idea" to switch to, all the current revenue levers need to be pushed to max to try to make it to that next stage, since public companies demand revenue every quarter.
A lot of their revenue is also from renting out GPUs to more productive AI companies, so depending on how long that game can keep on going (getting access to GPUs before other companies), it could last for a while too.
prymitive 36 minutes ago [-]
Here’s an idea: Musk launches a ton of orbital gpus but in reality it’s just an empty shell and real gpus sit in unused grok data centres. How would we even know?
_doctor_love 51 minutes ago [-]
Wasn't it Jeff Skilling who once waxed poetical about hypothetical future value?
croes 44 minutes ago [-]
Even if invented, what is the advantage of orbit data centers?
largbae 34 minutes ago [-]
Regulatory problems are doing the heavy lifting. Sure power is "free", if you can launch it, station keep it and cool it and if the data services are useful at the modem latencies of geosync and lunar orbits. But if datacenter projects can't be built/powered fast enough due to permitting, this is an expensive workaround.
bakies 35 seconds ago [-]
The orbits are lower than that. Not that it changes the point.
0cf8612b2e1e 37 minutes ago [-]
The best I have heard: It makes you fully independent of the terrestrial energy grid. There is also some nebulous freedom from governmental authority possibilities.
Both of which strike me as poor arguments. We are in a short term energy crunch. I expect within five years that most of the energy problems will be resolved and the eye watering financials of launching a GPU into space will look absurd
Governments also do not like to cede authority, so I find it hard to believe that they will not claim jurisdiction over any business operating within their borders (all of those ground stations).
bakies 2 minutes ago [-]
if you launch enough solar panels to power the data center into space, its just as easy to put them on the ground. Yeah there's some less power, but also have six times the lifespan so just build twice as many and it's still more efficient. Getting land in Texas can't be that hard.
amanaplanacanal 36 minutes ago [-]
I think the idea is easy energy availability and no push back from the locals. Those both seem to be to be fairly simple to solve on the ground compared to the unsolved issues doing it in orbit.
scottyah 10 minutes ago [-]
The Laws of Physics are much easier to build around than the Laws of Men.
ZiiS 52 minutes ago [-]
It is possible they delayed this rise as they didn't want bad news in the run-up to going public; but the is absolutely no way this can touch their fundamental numbers.
w10-1 35 minutes ago [-]
Note that the objection is as much to the abruptness as the scale of the price increase.
Large customers sinking millions into (here aviation) assets rightly expect that their vendors respect their market lifecycles.
Starlink's behavior creates a credibility gap that could drive such customers to the 2-3 upcoming competitors with poorer service and even higher costs, but perhaps more reliability as partners.
I'd see this as an opportunity.
khurs 31 minutes ago [-]
> Note that the objection is as much to the abruptness as the scale of the price increase.
When companies buy a service, they normally agree a bespoke contract for 5 years or so and a fixed price for additional units, often with an option of a further x years period too.
So sounds like there wasn't a bespoke contract as lawyers should have picked it up.
huslage 32 minutes ago [-]
The "upcoming" is doing a lot of work. There is not currently a viable alternative to Starlink with the same capability, speed, or latency. Amazon Leo will be the next to go online and it won't be fully operational until sometime in 2028. No one in the aviation industry will want to wait for that.
khurs 29 minutes ago [-]
>SpaceX has also increased the price of its Starlink Aviation equipment to $200,000 per business aircraft, up from $145,000 last year.
ouch.
1234letshaveatw 16 minutes ago [-]
Won't someone think of the aviators!!
petilon 40 minutes ago [-]
Blue Origin's Terawave [1] can't come soon enough.
Having just flown some flights with Starlink internet connection, I really love the service, it's just amazing. But the rugpull here might actually break through the distortion field of Musk. It's really interesting to compare the reality distortion fields of Elon Musk and Steve Jobs. It took a looooooong time for Apple stock to get properly valued in the 2000s, after it was clear that they would take over consumer computing. Jobs' RDF worked amazingly well on aligning engineering towards consumer needs, and towards convincing consumers and (some) reviewers that they had created the right sort of products for the future. Elon Musk seems to have mastered RDF on investors plus consumers, and when you're chasing sky high valuations by always piling your prior failed "ideas" into your next big thing (i.e. next big gamble), it only takes a few bad gambles to bring down the entire house of cards.
scottyah 6 minutes ago [-]
At the end of the day, there's the people who can make a vastly superior product time and time again, and they all like to work with other people who can do the same. They like to be pushed, they love solving hard problems, hate bureaucracy, and will find leaders that can accommodate all that. Elon provides that the same as Steve did.
kamranjon 47 minutes ago [-]
I am traveling in Europe currently and got a Saily SIM card - 5g coverage is really good and seems to be expanding fast - a small village I visited 2 years ago that had no cell coverage at all I was getting 250mbps download, faster than than the wired internet at most of the places I was visiting. This prompted me to actually look into Starlink speeds and apparently 5g is generally faster than Starlink...
This made me wonder if Starlink is a much more niche product than I thought - I actually thought it was significantly faster than cell data - but it seems it's just for folks in super remote areas at this point?
wongarsu 29 minutes ago [-]
There are plenty of super remote areas in Europe as well. Even more in the US, where population is more clustered to population centers
But the big selling points of Starlink are either as a backup connection (which the consumer plan actively enables: in months where you use less than 10GB you pay $10/month) or as a connection for ships and airplanes
justapassenger 42 minutes ago [-]
Remote areas of USA (and other third world countries when it comes to the communication infrastructure) + companies that operate in remote areas (logistic, resource extraction, etc) + military are main customer base.
pqtyw 30 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
croes 42 minutes ago [-]
Just look at the price and you see it’s for those without other alternatives
gruez 33 minutes ago [-]
Presumably local telecoms would be able to sell it for cheaper? "travel esim" providers like saily are basically paying roaming rates for whatever carrier the customer is physically in, it's definitely not the cheapest price available.
esseph 44 minutes ago [-]
> but it seems it's just for folks in super remote areas at this point?
TBF that's like 70% of the US, large parts of the Southern Hemisphere in general, much of China, India, Russia, etc.
But yes, StarLink is best when it has some user density but not too much user density. It will be this way until... probably forever.
If I go camping? StarLink. Otherwise no cell/internet service.
A few years ago I actually traveled all around the US and worked remotely with a 4g unlimited data sim card and was pretty amazed at the coverage, only very few places was I left without coverage. I'm guessing it's even better now?
panative 54 minutes ago [-]
Won’t somebody please think of the luxury private aviation consumers?
estearum 47 minutes ago [-]
A lot of people on this forum actually have investments in SpaceX, directly or indirectly, and they're interested in this stuff as a signal of the health of the company.
Not everything has to be some little gripefest.
meristohm 21 minutes ago [-]
I reckon a lot of people on this forum have poorer health thanks to man-made pollution.
The more money a person has, the greater the chance they spend it in ways that increase environmental harm. (Travel is a big one, and buying large homes, remodeling homes, heating and cooling those homes, well beyond the private sufficiency that would be enough for us if we also supported public luxuries instead of playing Smaug)
Rather than corporate health I'm more concerned with ecosystem health (actual eco-system, as in interconnected living beings, not the word applied to software...), and care much more about investing in the performance of the ecosystems (based on land, water, and air) that sustain life in the region I have this tiny bit of influence on.
Corporations are fictions, a game we're playing. After they go up in smoke, the land will still be here.
Finnucane 50 minutes ago [-]
Rich people are screwing over the slightly less rich, get out the silver pitchforks.
scottyah 48 minutes ago [-]
I don't think spacex is rolling in cash. Their valuation has little bearing on cash reserves until they sell.
pqtyw 35 minutes ago [-]
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35 minutes ago [-]
behnamoh 48 minutes ago [-]
As I write this, I'm disputing a charge from Starlink because when I activated mine, they automatically started the free trial for me, but nowhere in the receipt or on their website did they say they would switch me to the most expensive plan after the free trial was over. And they made it extremely confusing to cancel my free trial. So I ended up being charged $120 for something that I had just opened out of the box. I disputed it twice through Apple Card and it still got rejected, even though I have the invoices. So I'm disputing it a third time, and I know one thing is clear: I am never going to purchase anything that Elon has made ever again. They also lied to me about the cost of keeping the Starlink. Their app said the satellite would need to stay "alive," and to do so I had to pay $5 a month. But then I recently realized that that was also a lie—you don't have to pay to keep the service or the satellite alive.
petilon 40 minutes ago [-]
Apple Card aka Goldman Sachs is notoriously bad at handling disputes. They were fined $89 million for mishandling disputes, yet they continue to reject disputes offhand [1]. I no longer use Apple Card other than for Apple Store purchases.
-SpaceX raised $75bn in the IPO which will only last so long for a loss making high capital requirements company.
-Then $25bn via bonds which have an annual interest rate repayment of $1.46 billion + repayment of the $25b (depending on bond length in years 2031,33,36,46 and 2056)
-Morgan Stanley said: "In our model, we estimate SpaceX raising an average of $72bn annually between 2027 and 2030 and then an average of $95bn annually between 2031 and 2034."[0]
So huge amounts needed continuously.
[0]https://www.ft.com/content/09a62ed4-16af-433c-adb7-c877d1975...
[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-ipo-spcx-stock-free-f...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/1uklz4q/starlink_...
People first mentioned these fees at like $100... now you can go to Costco, grab a Starlink, and they'll randomly ask for $1,500 to actually start service.
Congestion is a thing when each node needs to go to space, but it also feels like they're cashing in on years of "just move to a cabin in the woods and work off Starlink"... once you've done that they have you by the balls even worse than a typical ISP.
Wanna guess if Starlink is advertising how insane these fees have gotten?
It's like everyone feels entitled to something they didn't know existed a few years ago.
If you are not big tech, that’s a lot of money. For the home in the middle of nowhere, $1500 could be more than you would pay in monthly rent. Plenty of rural people without access to good internet were hoping for Starlink to save them from garbage DSL connection options.
Look, friends of mine did this, they bought a country place so they can live the dream and write software in the sticks.
Next thing you know they're drilling new wells and installing a generator to support the fantasy while the bills pile up. When you bring modern conveniences to rural life it costs money.
Should a car company be allowed to charge you an extra fee every time you have a passenger?
This kind of behaviour does rather dampen the value proposition for such people.
Rural homes do have roads that can be reached on a rusty pickup.
It’s worse if they are squeezing people in underserved rural areas… our monthly has gone down from €35 to €29 and still getting the same speed.
The second SpaceX offers direct-to-cell in our area we will switch to their service as we’ve never had any issues with it whereas the incumbent mobile/broadband providers regularly throttle even when we’re paying top tier prices.
Totally agree there needs to be more competition and preferably not from other billionaires … but until then, Starlink is great!
On top of that, their claims it’s profitable does some heavy lifting with how to account for the cost of launching rockets.
It’s extremely cool product and very useful for many customers. But sustainability of current pricing is very questionable.
I've tent camped a lot on forest service land (and BLM land) both out west and in the east. Generally having arrived there by human power. Not once have I been confronted with a situation where the internet would've added to my safety in any way whatsoever.
but it isn't just about harm, as i said "convenience". i like being able to download detailed maps for trail hiking on-demand, and being off-grid and still able to be working (as my job requires me to be online).
And please, when you go hiking, download and print all the maps you need before you depart, and share a detailed plan with somebody able to call help, including a time estimate where you will make contact.
As for work. Please just take time off and take a proper vacation. By being constantly on call you will burn out at a much faster rate.
starlink enables me to get the best of both worlds, which is a huge reason why i love it so much.
comment edited from one 2x increase, because math and language are hard.
You cannot just put more satellites on top of cities, as they aren’t geostationary (which is why they’re fast), so you need to add insane amount of satellites, that would do nothing most of the time, when they’re not on top of densely populated area.
It’s still the best option, but far from “global”. Also Iran is an obvious lie with that “coming soon” color, so god knows what else isn’t true on this.
If you had a choice between Fiber or Starlink, you’d choose Fiber.
So as traditional ISPs improve service and coverage, Starlink becomes less in demand.
Starlink would only make sense if the world was not getting more and more concentrated around densely populated areas.
I kinda wanted to get one of those for standby, but the price seemed too good to be true, so I figured they'd either eliminate it or raise the price.
I only get 10G per month of bandwidth but I rarely use it since I have a fiber connection that is mostly reliable.
It might be a grandfathered plan because they don't list it anywhere I can see:
Edit: turns out this is a feature/mode and not a plan:https://starlink.com/na/support/article/37bb3b47-9525-7224-5...
And, apparently, I now have to reactivate the service to one of the published plans if I want to use more than low-speed data. Previously, I still had high-speed bandwidth for $10 a month just not a lot of it.
They apparently changed things recently. And, now that I'm thinking about it, I probably skimmed an email that said something about this a month or two ago but, since the charge was staying at $10 a month, didn't pay much attention to the details.
A lot of open source software uses this model - free for everyone, but if you're a company that wants support then you have to pay for it, and that covers the development for everyone
Are you sure this is negotiable?
Price on things like kitchen appliances, furniture often negotiable - you just have to ask.
My wife: (good customer) if I guy two pairs of shoes I want 2nd pair at 50% - them "ok"
My wife: what will you give me if I buy this (expensive briefcase)? - them "$100 gift card"
I got an extra $150 of a sheepskin coat at a going out of business sale just by asking
Then we could properly value the IPO in the quadrillions. (I know you know this is ridiculous. But investors clearly are riding high on the tulip mania).
Musk doesn't need to deliver to keep valuation up. We've seen him doing pretty well stringing people along indefinitely with "3 months maybe, 6 months definitely" self driving capabilities.
A lot of their revenue is also from renting out GPUs to more productive AI companies, so depending on how long that game can keep on going (getting access to GPUs before other companies), it could last for a while too.
Both of which strike me as poor arguments. We are in a short term energy crunch. I expect within five years that most of the energy problems will be resolved and the eye watering financials of launching a GPU into space will look absurd
Governments also do not like to cede authority, so I find it hard to believe that they will not claim jurisdiction over any business operating within their borders (all of those ground stations).
Large customers sinking millions into (here aviation) assets rightly expect that their vendors respect their market lifecycles.
Starlink's behavior creates a credibility gap that could drive such customers to the 2-3 upcoming competitors with poorer service and even higher costs, but perhaps more reliability as partners.
I'd see this as an opportunity.
When companies buy a service, they normally agree a bespoke contract for 5 years or so and a fixed price for additional units, often with an option of a further x years period too.
So sounds like there wasn't a bespoke contract as lawyers should have picked it up.
ouch.
[1] https://www.blueorigin.com/terawave
He will extract as much as possible, whenever possible.
https://www.ft.com/content/3a023b95-66c3-41e1-b0ce-df752a499...
Having just flown some flights with Starlink internet connection, I really love the service, it's just amazing. But the rugpull here might actually break through the distortion field of Musk. It's really interesting to compare the reality distortion fields of Elon Musk and Steve Jobs. It took a looooooong time for Apple stock to get properly valued in the 2000s, after it was clear that they would take over consumer computing. Jobs' RDF worked amazingly well on aligning engineering towards consumer needs, and towards convincing consumers and (some) reviewers that they had created the right sort of products for the future. Elon Musk seems to have mastered RDF on investors plus consumers, and when you're chasing sky high valuations by always piling your prior failed "ideas" into your next big thing (i.e. next big gamble), it only takes a few bad gambles to bring down the entire house of cards.
This made me wonder if Starlink is a much more niche product than I thought - I actually thought it was significantly faster than cell data - but it seems it's just for folks in super remote areas at this point?
But the big selling points of Starlink are either as a backup connection (which the consumer plan actively enables: in months where you use less than 10GB you pay $10/month) or as a connection for ships and airplanes
TBF that's like 70% of the US, large parts of the Southern Hemisphere in general, much of China, India, Russia, etc.
But yes, StarLink is best when it has some user density but not too much user density. It will be this way until... probably forever.
If I go camping? StarLink. Otherwise no cell/internet service.
A few years ago I actually traveled all around the US and worked remotely with a 4g unlimited data sim card and was pretty amazed at the coverage, only very few places was I left without coverage. I'm guessing it's even better now?
Not everything has to be some little gripefest.
The more money a person has, the greater the chance they spend it in ways that increase environmental harm. (Travel is a big one, and buying large homes, remodeling homes, heating and cooling those homes, well beyond the private sufficiency that would be enough for us if we also supported public luxuries instead of playing Smaug)
Rather than corporate health I'm more concerned with ecosystem health (actual eco-system, as in interconnected living beings, not the word applied to software...), and care much more about investing in the performance of the ecosystems (based on land, water, and air) that sustain life in the region I have this tiny bit of influence on.
Corporations are fictions, a game we're playing. After they go up in smoke, the land will still be here.
[1] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/archive/newsroom/cfpb-orders...