• LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    I was excited about starlink when it was announced, but already it’s way too expensive, already bows to actual totalitarians and isn’t affordable on the ocean and not available in remote places without a license.

    And with more satellite constellations planned by amazon and others, it seems the kessler syndrome is just a question of time.

    • Crampon@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      It’s extremely affordable on the ocean. What are you talking about?

      Just until recently satellite internet was really expensive. Like only large corporations could afford it. And the bandwidth was shit. Also it was barely available in the deep northern and southern hemisphere. Sure it’s considered expensive for the regular kayaking dude. But it’s insanely more available than ever before.

      The dudes an asshole. But don’t invent arguments.

      • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
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        3 hours ago

        Yeah it’s much cheaper, but still like $250 excessively expensive compared to $50 land based starlink. For no technical reason since there is vastly less utilization on ocean. It’s price gauging because of lack of alternative and because rich cruisers can afford it. So poor people are still forced to use cell phone based internet (or starlink) only near the coast and nothing has changed. For me it’s a disappointment. Of course that is just capitalism.

        Theoretically the sea could be one of the cheapest places to live if you build and maintain your own solar powered electric boat. Or use kite power. No taxes, produce your own electricity, produce your own water, incinerating toilet and emit only grey water. The one thing that is missing is cheap internet.

    • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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      22 hours ago

      On the Kessler point, Starlink birds fly at an altitude where they will deorbit in 4-8 years if they go dead, so that particular orbit will always be fairly clean, and if a Kessler event does happen, the debris will deorbit in a reasonable length of time.

      • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        Turkey and Russia. It’s clear that profit seeking corporations would bow, but then Elon screams bloody murder when reactionary forces in Brazil manipulating social media get censored.

          • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
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            1 day ago

            To bow, or bow down or kneel for. But I’m not going to google that for you haha. The basic problem is that starlink theoretically has immense power so it becomes a political tool. He bows to those ones but not to legitimate democratic interests.

            Especially once starlink and others can make landline based internet connections obsolete by pricing them out - which they are not currently doing though, but it seems only a matter of time with competition. Basically we could get to a situation where there are only like 2 or 3 internet provider practically controlling internet globally.

              • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
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                2 hours ago

                Yeah. Which is in stark contrast to Musk’s rhetoric in Brazil, which had a legal court order for censoring. Maybe Ukraine/Russia wasn’t the best example. My point is that it’s immense power. In the hands of a soulless corporation it’s bad enough but an outright fascist like Musk is much worse.

            • Saledovil@sh.itjust.works
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              24 hours ago

              They won’t be able to price landline based connections out as long as they have to replace their satellites every 5 years. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re running at a loss currently.

              • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
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                3 hours ago

                I’m pretty sure they ran the numbers for potential profits and determined it’s a goldmine - in the long run. Maybe they’ll need to increase the lifespan of satellites. Their internal launch costs are pretty low already. Amazon wants to build it’s own constellation and is building new glen partially because they can’t get launch slots from SpaceX. I’m sure you can find some numbers to do some napkin math.

                Theoretically they can serve the whole world with internet without requiring only minimal land based infrastructure. That is a gigantic market they can reach. And incredibly power to wield for such a psycho.

                Another strange case is high-frequency trading on stock exchanges - because light is faster in the vacuum of space compared to fiberglass they can trade on the stock exchanges around the world like nobody else can. Not sure how much money that makes.

            • ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
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              2 hours ago

              Replies like this from people like you is why social media sucks. Thanks for your contribution on keeping it so.