Re:Africans Are Turning to Starlink
by 15155 on Friday July 03, 2026 @06:56PM
(#48780992)
Worthless for theft, but subject to ransom and destruction by your local warlord.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Failed social institutions are the source of all poverty in the world. The world produces enough of every basic necessity already. It's the distribution, not availability, where the source of hunger and depravity is.
How many countries do you think have local warlords problems in Africa to negatively affect fibre deployments.
Maybe not many, but some rather large. Say, Congo, or Sudan. But more often that would be not outright warlords but rather corrupt peacetime officials, who would try to extract or extort some additional personal / clan gain from something that could be a commonly accessible good.
Those are exceptions and can’t be used to characterise an entire continent. I have lived in areas of the continent with poor security and jihadist violence yet year in year out, fibre access kept expanding and getting cheaper. The corruption don’t stop rollouts, just make them more expensive and are not particularly to African countries.