[lokimedes]

I know it’s easy to sit at home being indignant at the internet, but how on earth does an ISP with 10M subscribers and the most expensive infrastructure in the solar system ever come out to be worth $300B? They even have to routinely replenish their “cell towers” as their orbits decay.

Any mid-sized country would have multiple cellphone and Internet providers with larger customer bases and less upkeep.

[relium]

They are pushing business-to-business service too, like ships, airlines, and retail/office backup. Plus smartphones can talk directly to their satellites. A lot of countries will use them for military use. Whether it adds up to a reasonable IPO I can't tell - market irrationality is hard to measure.

[onlypassingthru]

It's the only ISP that reliably works globally but especially in war zones with zero competitors. How much is your life/sovereignty worth to you?

[scottyah]

How much would it cost you to run wires to the northern tip of Greenland and Antarctica? How about the middle of the Pacific? All of Africa? At the end of the day, that is the alternative. If you think normal ISP ground stations don't need maintenance (especially power), you're missing a lot. Also I know people who have cell towers on their property, and they get paid over a hundred thousand a year just for that.

[NoLinkToMe]

Sure but this is a shrinking market population, right? We're not talking about 1 billion Chinese, as far as I know there's about 5000 people on Antartica at any point in time. Most of those are concentrated in the same areas meaning a connection can be shared. How that gets you to $300 billion valuation I don't know.

I mean if you value a company for its future cashflows, how long will Starlink be the only game in town? Will we not see other rockets/space-internet competitors in 2040 for example, in 15 years from now, from any other company (or even, any other state actor)? I think we will, and I think that timeline is generous. Without a monopoly you're competing the price towards marginal cost to cater to a tiny and shrinking fraction of the world that needs satelite internet. The vast majority of people live in urban environments, particularly among those who can afford internet in the first place, and it's only growing further in that direction.

I think Starlink is a wonderful product but there's a reason it has $10b revenue, while telecom companies around the world do more than $1.7 trillion in revenue.[0]

[0] https://dgtlinfra.com/top-telecom-companies/