Comment by IgorPartola
16 days ago
StarLink is a bad investment too in my opinion. It is fundamentally a US company that must charge US prices but in the US there are relatively few people who need that tech. Only in more rural areas that are sparsely populated do you not have access to fiber or cable which give better speeds and latency.
The majority of their revenue is overseas. But there they can’t reasonably charge $99/month. And there labor and land are cheap such that you can get fiber laid cheaply and quickly.
StarLink is the only thing about SpaceX that makes a profit. But that's only possible because no one else has a network up there hence it can ask for any price it want. Let's not forget that before StarLink there was Iridium and it got ousted because there was a better offer and I wouldn't be surprised if some other company will eventually go up with a better offer.
Uh, all of SpaceX’s launch business has been insanely profitable since 2010. They basically own the entire global launch market with huge margins.
They aren't in the black at all, let alone "insanely" so. Maybe if they just did commercial launches on falcon 9, but instead they've been shoveling those "huge margins" straight back into r&d on starship etc.
3 replies →
Starlink guided drones are tipping the scales for Ukraine right now. That's what enables the range required to successfully hit trains and fuel trucks supplying Crimea through the "land bridge" made from conquered lands in South Ukraine.
That plus satellite comms. Both Russia and Ukraine were very fond of how it improves communication.
Edit: meant to say that in the time of global instability, weapons tech is going to be valuable.
This is putting the world at risk of Kessler Syndrome.
Not so much Ukraine using drones that use starlink, more the sheer number of starlink sats up and planned, the numbers in the proposed other constellations going up and planned, and the ongoing propensity of Chinese rockets to fragment after use rather than safely de orbit.
For interest:
An Orbital House of Cards: Frequent Megaconstellation Close Conjunctions (2025)
~ https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09643
Yep, it feels like forever a niche market. As soon as you think about it like fundamental infrastructure (which as I understand it is what we’re supposed to think about) it quickly becomes obvious that cables are better suited. Wealthy enclaves, digital nomads etc will pay for it, but that’s not going to get the revenue they’re hoping for.
You mention that cables are better suited... but that is the whole point of Starlink. Getting cables everywhere is either not feasible or expensive. The rural properties are already mentioned as a very big source of usage right now around the world. But you also have everyone who is using it for some mobile purpose. Whether that be planes, boats, RV's, cars, military, etc... I've even seen people live streaming things using Starlink due to cell towers not giving good enough connections where they are.
While they may not be ideal or people living in Urban areas, they also aren't limited to selling to people who are physically connected by cable like a regular ISP would be.
I think you're underestimating the market here. Especially on the enterprise side when you start thinking of things like airliners, cruise ships, etc...
Agreed, starlink is obviously advantageous from the global (and extra-global) perspective. Running cables is expensive. But so is launching satellites, and it’s hard to see how you reach a tipping point where satellites gets cheaper than the standard boring cable networking that supports the terrestrial internet
4 replies →
How many people actually live in areas that do not have some sort of broadband? That’s the whole point: this is a product designed for relatively few people.
I think there's a strong chance this is a case of it creating a whole new market though.
There are people whose current behaviour/situations will happen to benefit from this, and that may be a niche, but seems like there's a really solid chance many more people actually will change their behaviour in response to this being available. That's how disruption happens.
To be honest I can easily see the default changing if the service is good enough. I mean it seems like you basically get most of what is good about wired plus a whole load of extra previously totally unavailable benefits. For a price, to be sure, but that'll come down.
> labor and land are cheap such that you can get fiber laid cheaply and quickly.
Which is why all of sub-saharan Africa is crisscrossed in fiber, and every hut in those villages has an ONT zip-tied to the straw walls where they get their symmetrical gigabit service.
What a terrible take.
There is a huge market even just in the US for Starlink. The worldwide market for people who need internet access in remote places is positively gigantic.
Additionally, Starlink could be hugely profitable if they exclusively sold access to ships and aircraft. You'll never be able to run fiber to those.
They can indeed reasonably charge $99/month to many many millions worldwide who don't have any options for low latency, high speed internet access. You vastly underestimate the need for the service.
On the one hand you have a technology product that’s only relevant to rural consumers. Nine out of ten people have cable already.
On the other hand your margins are amazing because all you do is fly little boxes over everyone’s heads launched with government subsidized rockets. No linemen or plant-hire or contractors to sap your profits.
The biggest threat would be commoditized terrestrial wifi / 5G. The more cell service competition there is, the smaller the market for satellite, until it’s only applicable to 1% of the population (and the poorest 1% at that.)
> Nine out of ten people have cable already.
More like 8.2 out of ten. Either way the remainder is still a pretty decent market. And that's just talking about people in the USA. About 75% of Starlink subscribers are outside the USA.
> and the poorest 1% at that
Not by a lot. People who live in remote areas in the USA tend to have much less money overall, but they tend to spend much less money overall, leading to a similar amount of buying power. Someone who lives remote is more likely to own their home outright or have a relatively small mortgage. Their socio-economic status can appear numerically depressed because the numbers generally don't account for non-monetary consumption. (You got paid a salary and bought salmon from the supermarket. Remote dude fishes for salmon in a local stream. You both traded your time for salmon, but remote dude's salmon is invisible to GDP statistics.)
And furthermore, for them, Starlink would be budgeted for like an essential service rather than a luxury convenience.
2 replies →
Just throwing it out there, Im a Verizon customer in the Tri-State Area and I frequently lose service on the train or bus on my way to the city. It's more than just a 'rural issue'. I looked into getting a StarLink plan for my commute until I realized logistically, at best, I'm a freak sitting next to the window with a satellite dish on the train.
No it’s not.
I flew from Zürich to Bangalore via Qatar and both flights had starlink.
There are many many uses for it, besides rural homes.
1 reply →
> Nine out of ten people have cable already.
What on Earth are you talking about?!? Half the people on Earth don’t have any sort of internet access at all.
> government subsidized rockets
The Starlink launches are not subsidized in any way. Now it’s clear you are either totally uninformed, or actively trolling.
> The biggest threat would be commoditized terrestrial wifi / 5G. The more cell service competition there is, the smaller the market for satellite
This is actually one of their biggest market opportunities. How do you think the backhaul for 5G towers works in extremely remote locations?
Like I said, terrible take.
Most of the areas without good internet barely take home $100/m and a lot of them take home less than that.
If you hooked up every single cargo ship on the planet to starlink, you'd only add around 100k connections and average wages on most of those vessels is $5-8/hr (very few US/EU sailors these days) for a handful of people which tells you how much businesses actually care about their workers who do dangerous jobs.