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Comment by schiffern | Hacker News Reader

>Free,

Not free according to Musk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHeZHyOnsm4&t=12m37s

>Well it can't be free. Because then we'll, like, we'll go out of business. [laugh]

>No, no, it can't be free to the user. I don't think so.

>This would be... this would cost a lot to build. Ultimately over time to build the full version of the system, we're talking about something that would be 10 or 15 billion dollars to create. Maybe more. And the user terminals would be at least 100, to maybe 300 dollars, depending on which type of terminal.

>And this is intended to generate a significant amount of revenue, and help fund a city on Mars. So looking into the long term, and saying, "what's needed to create a city on Mars?" Well one thing's for sure... a lot of money. [laugh] So we need things that will generate a lot of money.

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>And this is intended to generate a significant amount of revenue

You gotta appreciate the honesty. It is so unusual that we still look at this trying to see the angles.

Not sure why you're downvoted. Very true statement, imo.

One of the good impressions that I get from Musk: Money does not seem to be his goal, but rather a side-effect of good technology. Unlike a lot of other people who seem to use good technology as a means of achieving money. He seems genuinely eager to get projects started and self-sustainable so that they can outlive him and push humanity forward.

> Unlike a lot of other people who seem to use good technology as a means of achieving money.

There's nothing wrong with this. In fact many pure tech projects fail completely because they don't understand how to make money, ultimately helping no one.

that's the whole point of the GP: it's not the tech or the money that's the goal, it's the helping out part that drives both the tech and the money. i agree that this doesn't look usual and i applaud Musk for becoming rich and still being focused on his original goals instead of trying to make more money.

> being focused on his original goals instead of trying to make more money.

My point is that there's nothing wrong with trying to make more money as the goal. It's not some morally lesser option.

i'd rather not bring morality into this, because it's like an ass: everybody's got their own. my point is that 'making more money' is the easiest option if you're already at 'making money' stage, and it's not what Musk seems to be doing, unlike many.

I think the intention isn't really to say that making money is a bad thing. But more that forgoing ideals/morals/principles/etc can lead to negative acts.

An extreme example is dumping industrial waste illegally to save on costs of safe disposal.

Uh huh.

Or you know, he's already rich.

Nothing a company builds is free. And I think it's better to pay with money than with data. Not saying you're not paying with both here.

> Not saying you're not paying with both here.

If Facebook's "Open Internet" (Read: "Walled Garden") denied by India is any indication, you're unfortunately paying more for the service with your personal data than you are with any money.

Absolutely. Money is once...you pay it to someone, they pay it to someone else, they no longer have it. When you pay someone with your data, they have that forever and can monetize it hundreds of different ways over and over long after you've moved on or stopped using whatever you got from them.

One question we fail to ask, when we compare money to personal data, is how much is that data worth to you, when it's not being monetized by some company x?

Not much at all in most cases, at least not in a way you can easily monetize. To sum up others can get some money from it, you don't. So you are getting the short end of the stick. This made me delete most of my social media accounts.

15 billion to develop and deploy to space over four thousand satelites (not ignoring the fact that developing the prototype costs orders of magnitude more than simply assemblying the rest) seems like a gross underestimation...

Presumably they've thought this through before announcing it.

Musk's real practical talent seems to be as a "scaling enthusiast". While I don't want to come across as a fanboy, I've been re-thinking my assumptions recently based on his perspective of what the real costs of things should be when manufacturing, testing and QC is mostly automated and I can't find fault with a lot of his calculations.

If they can put up 20 sats per launch, that's a cost of $75m per launch. With first stage re-usability each launch might cost ~$35m, leaving $2m to pay for each of those 20 satellites. This isn't taking into account the cost of ground stations and operational costs such as personnel, but it doesn't seem completely outlandish.

Elon Musk != Donald Trump. When he makes statements/estimations, even if they prove significantly conservative, they are truly grounded in verifiable facts.

I certainly would not call Musk's statements conservative. He does ultimately deliver, but seldom on schedule.

People have been trying this for decades without success. McCaw and Gates tried it in the 90s with Teledesic, for example. Iridium also tried it without success. IIRC, Teledesic's early estimates 20 years ago were ~$10B.

But hasn't satellite technology changed significantly in the interim since 90's with much smaller payloads i.e CubeSats and FemtoSats. These should theoretically result in lower deployment costs:

small sattelites: http://news.mit.edu/2016/better-views-smaller-satellites-071... http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/the-next-big-thing-in...

Sure, but smaller payloads == smaller capabilities. Telecommunications satellites need massive switching capabilities and also massive power. They also need large antennas to service particular areas and they need propellant to maintain their orbits. How many CubeSats would be required to stream HD video to many thousands of people, for example? Not saying it can't be done, just saying that it isn't an easy problem to solve and there has been a lot of money already spent trying to solve it prior to Musk's announcement.

There was an article on HN at some point talking about how GPS is one of the first free-for-everyone services ever.

GPS requires maintaining an array of satellites, but governments have decided that footing the bill for maintenance is worth it to give the whole planet access to GPS.

First, GPS is the US, not "governments". The US owns it, period. There's only one reasonably functional alternative and that's GLONASS which is Russian. There is no communal body or activity supporting GPS other than the US (and by extension US taxpayers). The US can deny access to GPS anytime it wishes through a feature called Selective Availability (SA). This was turned off in the early 2000s and the official US position is that it "has no intent" to turn it on again but there's nothing preventing it. Second, access to GPS (the receivers) is further regulated by the US under certain conditions (ie those that would provide a military advantage) and require an ITAR license from the US. Third, GPS was developed and is maintained specifically for defense/military purposes. Public GPS is less capable and the more capable military signals are encrypted. Sure, it is used by the public, but that is not the primary use case. Granted, this is evolving as the US is at the forefront of things like autonomous vehicles and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications which require precise positioning data but the intent was and is to support US efforts primarily military. Any global benefit is purely incidental.

I guess the OP means "free" as in "freedom" not as in "free beer".

Even at 300 dollars a month if he throws in a decent hub or terminal it could be a net savings for any NGO, research team, or rural government or village. Especially on the last two if they're allow to resell a portion of their access to cover their costs. I hope the 100 dollar price point becomes viable, though. That would probably increase the market for them and just would be a boon for many more people.

I like Elon but think he is not thinking straight here. Eventually Internet will become free. No point in thinking of making significant revenue.

Why is that inevitable?

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