[x-complexity]

> I don't see how orbital datacenters will ever be able to compete with terrestrial.

An orbital DC makes fiscal sense when the cost to launch one to space is lower than the cost to build one on Earth.

Key point: The cost of building on Earth will inevitably trend upwards as more restrictions & costs are (~80% rightfully) placed onto Earth-bound datacenters.

[dingaling]

More restrictions and costs are going to have to be placed on satellites, too.

At present it's like railroad building across the Wild West; get some notional national 'permission' and then chuck them up there into a globally-shared space. That's not sustainable as the important orbits become crowded.

[MagicMoonlight]

And that will never be true, so it’s meaningless.

It would also be cheaper to build one on the moon, if it was free to build them on the moon.

[x-complexity]

> And that will never be true, so it’s meaningless.

The math is simple: The total cost for building on Earth is X, the total cost for building in space is Y.

If X > Y, building in space makes fiscal sense.

To say that it never happens, MagicMoonlight, requires X to always be less than Y, which cannot hold true forever. Eventually, X will grow to be more than Y, simply due to (rightfully placed) increased regulations for building on Earth.

> It would also be cheaper to build one on the moon, if it was free to build them on the moon.

Arguably, that should be the original goal: Build the DC on the moon.