[cycomanic]

I find the naivity inherent in believing the claims of starlink being almost humanitarian by bringing cheap Internet to the unconnected masses fascinating. Satellite constellation are still extremely expensive way of deploying Internet even if (and that's a big if) spacex brings costs down by an order of magnitude.

The users of these constellations will not be the unconnected masses, it will be users with big pockets, military, intelligence, and large enterprise who operate in remote areas (i.e. mining and oil). Also who are the early adopters who bring down launch costs of constellations for everyone by paying a premium? I doubt starlink has the deep pockets needed. No it will be intelligence services who'd love satelitte constellations capable of near real time surveillance from LEO orbit.

Somehow nobody talks about this in their fawning over Musks latest tweets. And let's not even talk about the environmental impact of largely increases rocket launches.