People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity

Re:People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity by ghaff on Sunday March 19, 2023 @12:45PM (#35220844)

I agree with your basic point--and subsidies are a complicated topic. Cities can't exist in isolation.

That said, Starlink, and presumably competitors at some point, does change the game. As does probably 5G and successors. They don't replace last mile/last 10 mile wired Internet for all cases but we do increasingly have viable alternative for more rural locations.

My brother's house had a 1Mb/s down ADSL wired connection and he was the last house on the road that could get "broadband" at all. With Starlink, he's able to work, stream video, etc. which wouldn't have been possible before.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity by bumby on Sunday March 19, 2023 @05:06PM (#35223635)

It’s also important to recognize companies like SpaceX benefit heavily from socialized infrastructure. For example, they lease a pad at Kennedy Space Center and use DoD infrastructure at Vandenberg.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity by ghaff on Sunday March 19, 2023 @05:18PM (#35223751)

While there's perhaps some excessive idolatry of SpaceX and shade on ULA and NASA initiatives, I'm not sure that subsidies--somewhat overt or otherwise--are necessarily a bad thing. Certainly DARPA has a long history.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity by bumby on Sunday March 19, 2023 @07:10PM (#35224763)

I tend to agree. I think the hybrid system has a lot of benefits, but unfortunately many of these discussions seems to devolve into framing the issue as a false dichotomy.

[ Parent | on HN ]