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. I’m not into cult of Elon but he’s no fool. What else is going on here?
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.
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.
Sign... this is just not how the space industry works. Europe, China, India and Dod/NASA simply won't let this happen.
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.
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 :)