Ask HN: Will more people leave cities due to satellite internet in rural areas?

FWIW, in between, there are also a lot of small towns that are only "semi-rural": short distance from nature and the outdoors, reasonable access to essential healthcare, entertainment, groceries, etc., but without the crazy traffic, costs, and crime of the big cities. You can easily get internet access (cable, satellite, fiber sometimes), things aren't quite as expensive as the metro areas (though not cheap by rural standards either), and there's still a fair amount of diversity (of culture/thought/politics/food/etc.).

Problem is, these towns tend to have a limited lifespan, often being undiscovered gems for a few decades, and then either they turn into ghost towns or they get too popular and rapidly gentrified and become unaffordable (like Boulder, CO).

It would be a fun GIS problem to identify the next up-and-coming town like this and move there a few years before it really explodes. Then do it again for the next one, etc. You'd have a great quality of life and also probably make a fortune flipping houses a decade later. Assuming you can stay remote, of course... but the same man making flying internet hates it when his minions aren't in their cages.

> Will more people leave cities due to satellite internet in rural areas?

Finding a suitable property can be super difficult. Internet providers can be an invisible factor in that kind of equation. Folks tend to get where they're going, realize there isn't a worthwhile wireline ISP and sign up for 4G/5G wireless (less expensive than satellite).

Where 4G/5G isn't available, other services are also lacking (shopping, medical, schooling). That is a stronger decider.

> Would you consider doing that?

Within state, no. My semi-rural county was trenched for fiber last year. I have symmetrical 2Gb @ $80/mo.

To leave the state, I probably would. I'd give up a lot to escape Florida.

My family has already tried that, given up on it, and moved back to central Seattle. The rural life is lonely and boring, and driving everywhere all the time got really old.

I can get satellite internet in the city. Why would I move to the sticks to get satellite internet?

I would consider doing that, but we have a house now, plus my wife likes being near the city.

Three years ago I had a hybrid job based on Silicon Valley; it was fully remote during COVID but switched to in office once per week when restrictions were lifted (this switch did not come as a surprise; we knew throughout the pandemic that full remote was a temporary situation). I wanted to buy a home in Santa Cruz County, but I kept getting outbid beyond my (admittedly small) budget of about $525,000. I then considered rural areas; I even drove to an open house near Lake San Antonio about 30 minutes northwest of Paso Robles to see a brand new house that sat on a one-acre lot. The home was around $450,000, and it was located in Starlink’s service zone.

After some consideration, however, I ruled out living so far away from town. One significant factor was access to health care. Specialty doctors could be hard to find, and if I’m in an emergency, it’s a long trip to either King City or Paso Robles. Another major concern, though this is not a universal problem, is the exploding cost of home and fire insurance, especially in fire-prone zones like many of California’s less-populated areas near hills and mountains.

I like the peacefulness and beauty of less-populated areas, but I rely on city services, and so I prefer to live in or near a city.

I am not sure how much it will help actually rural areas, but it could definitely help with smaller cities where the internet infrastructure is poor. I think though it is less about satellite internet and more about the higher tolerance for remote work.

no, people are not stupid...if Elon has one of his happy ideas you might end up with horrendously expensive internet or, who knows, no internet at all.