this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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SpaceX projected 20 million Starlink users by 2022—it ended up with 1 million::Starlink has a fraction of the projected $12B revenue and 20M users, WSJ says.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It’s a supposed civilian, consumer aimed service

The internet was invented to wage war. It's not an admirable goal, but it's what it was made for. Only after the fact did we turn it into the banal meme stream it is now. When SpaceX requested permission to the FAA to launch its hundreds of thousands of garbage cans, military infrastructure backup was actually part of the pitch to justify the sky contamination. The Pentagon agreed to acquire Starlink for UA because it was part of the listed capabilities of the network. And military operations are not just about destroying things and killing people. Military operations include rescuing the wounded and safeguarding civilians from harm. Armies need to have good communications for this, to avoid destroying non-military targets, reduce the risk of collateral damage, coordinate evacuations and to defend themselves from the opposing force. A communication network should be a neutral channel, what Musk has done with it is to politicize and weaponize it, like the Russians weaponize medical care, judicial freedom and other things that should be basic human rights but are used to coerce individuals to commit atrocities against others.