> Given this, why doesn’t spaceX jack up its prices? I mean it could double them on these numbers and still be less than half the competition.

Depends on the elasticity of demand. Maybe if they doubled the price the demand would more than halve, resulting in a lower revenue. It’s hard to tell.

SpaceX gets to grow the industry while capturing the business of every new entrant who wouldn't have considered launching something to space at higher price points.

That’s a great question. I would guess that part of the answer is that the cost is a massive differentiator for them.

If costs were higher, competitors would probably not launch on SpaceX rockets. They were also not a “safe” choice until recently. They’ve also been able to capture the market and put enormous pressure on their competitors. I’m certain there are other reasons.

I’d love to hear an actual business person weigh in on this.

Without knowing more about the market, I suspect that - other than at SpaceX - commercial customers don't pay list price.

It's pretty well known nobody pays anywhere close to list price for airplanes from Boeing and Airbus. I've heard discounts as much as 40-50% for planes but the actual numbers are pretty closely guarded. Wouldn't surprise me in the least if this were happening in the launch business.

I'm probably not an "actual business person" though, for whatever definition you're using :)

Globalstar said they paid 64 million

Sounds like the usual undercut the competition until there's nobody left, then exploit your monopoly as you wish until someone comes along and does the same thing to you.

> usual undercut the competition until there's nobody left

Sign... this is just not how the space industry works. Europe, China, India and Dod/NASA simply won't let this happen.

The goal of SpaceX/Elon has never been to make maximal profit at the expense of the market as a whole. I'm not sure why people have such a difficulty understanding this. They state it repeatedly every chance they get and have never acted against that principle either.

They want to grow the industry as a whole. Remember their real ultimate goal is going to Mars and they don't want to be the only space company in existence to want to do that.

Just like the "Paypal Mafia" of old there's starting to be a "SpaceX Mafia" of former SpaceXers rich off of SpaceX stock starting their own space companies and teaming up with SpaceX to move things forward.