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A comment on SpaceX Gets FCC Approval to Sell Wireless High-Speed Home Internet from Space. Parent comment

Re:SpaceX Gets FCC Approval to Sell Wireless High-Speed Home... by Symmetry on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @07:18AM (#19786901)
If you have a lot of market power and you want to make as much money as possible the rational thing to do is to charge people according to their willingness to pay[1]. You can't do this perfectly but this is what is behind senior discounts and Intel's huge number of SKUs. Since people in Botswana can't profitably resell their internet in England, since Starlink can easily charge different amounts in different countries, and because the marginal cost of servicing a new region is approximately zero it would be crazy for Starlink not to do geographic pricing tiers.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination

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Re:SpaceX Gets FCC Approval to Sell Wireless High-Speed Home... by studentrob on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @07:24AM (#19786934)
That sounds like a yes.

If money is your only goal, that's completely rational. However, that's not how I've typically heard people champion Musk. He's been lauded as a progressive person whose aims are meant to serve humanity, not merely his wallet. Supposedly.

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Re:SpaceX Gets FCC Approval to Sell Wireless High-Speed Home... by Symmetry on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @10:27AM (#19788193)
All human beings are complex and you can't just sort them into good people and bad people. Elon seems to be more idealist than most about the fate of humanity as a whole but also seems to be willing to work his employees to the bone, drive sharp bargains, etc to pursue that goal. He's said that he sees Starlink as a cash cow that'll fund future Mars colonies and I don't have any reason to believe that he isn't being sincere about that.
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Re:SpaceX Gets FCC Approval to Sell Wireless High-Speed Home... by studentrob on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @10:49AM (#19788408)
> All human beings are complex and you can't just sort them into good people and bad people.

Some would make the argument that if everyone worked with only their wallet in mind, we'd be better off. I wouldn't.

> Elon seems to be more idealist than most

Elon is not an idealistic engineer, he is a businessman. He actively misleads about products he must have been told will not meet the timelines he promotes.

> about the fate of humanity

Not sure where you get this idea. The way he talks about AGI taking over the world is creepy. He thinks it's inevitable, nevermind that we have no idea how to design anything close to AGI.

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Re:SpaceX Gets FCC Approval to Sell Wireless High-Speed Home... by wongarsu on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @07:50AM (#19787061)
It's not like serving humanity and making money is mutally exclusive. If there are markets in developing countries he can serve cheaper than anyone else both sides profit: he makes money, the people get cheaper internet.

That said, internet already tends to be the infrastructure demand best satisfied in developing countries. Building cell phone towers is much easier than building roads, and with cheap labor and no purchasing power comes cheap internet.

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Re:SpaceX Gets FCC Approval to Sell Wireless High-Speed Home... by studentrob on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @10:36AM (#19788275)
> If there are markets in developing countries he can serve cheaper than anyone else both sides profit: he makes money, the people get cheaper internet.

Let's see whether it is net-neutral internet or not, then judge. My guess is it will have exclusive offers to content distributors in order to lower cost.

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