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Comment by ncmncm | Hacker News Reader

Yes. You can think of it as automated stealing. Much of the inequity could be eliminated by imposing a per-transaction tax.

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Then you get more smart people being pointed at "minimising the tax burden" instead of "doing things faster/better".

Or you can think of it as HTF trading firms subsidizing 20-60ms internet for the common user. The last couple ms probably mean nothing to you but they mean a lot to them. I guess it depends on what your world view is.

Somehow, I foresee SpaceX just pocketing the extra money, not reducing the little peoples' prices. Have you seen any reason to expect different?

The extra money is probably needed to make the whole thing viable. SpaceX probably has a goal price for consumer plans and they are just trying to hit that price.

Regardless I just don't see SpaceX as the company that doesn't evolve with times tbh.

I do not understand that reasoning at all, where there is any.

"Evolve with times" does not seem to mean anything. In markets where Starlink is viable, they have no effective competition, and can charge as much as the market will bear. As long as they have more potential users than bandwidth to sell them, they are under no pressure to reduce prices or give up profit. A goal to subsidize Martian colonization provides a very strong incentive to maximize income. We should expect to see very high gross margins until other constellations begin to compete.

Yea let's not serve an area because their only option could potentially overcharge them! Completely ignoring the fact that you can't define an overcharge without alternative options. Current sat internet is orders of magnitude more expensive for a much worse service. Starlink is literally breaking monopolies and your worry is that it's going to be a monopoly itself.

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