[haggy]

> if SpaceX is convinced they could still beat a competitor

That's not really the point though. Amazon is a fierce (and many times dirty) competitor to be up against.

If you're competing directly with AWS then you need to take every advantage you can get. If you're trying to build a global satellite network to provide internet access and not having launch capabilities will delay AWS long enough to get a foothold in the market then you take it.

[ethbro]

T-minus X: "Starlink: offering free transit to Azure & GCP."

[lozaning]

Eventually someone's going to launch an orbital data center to cut down on round trip latency. You think AWS bandwidth is expensive now lol.

[ethbro]

Thought occurred to me, but I imagine heat dispersion would be cost-prohibitive vs terrestrial options.

I suppose {sat -> orbital DC -> sat} (latency) or {sat -> orbital DC processing -> ground} (transmission bandwidth) are the primary use cases? Maybe security?