[natch]

No. We’ve tried that for decades now and it hasn’t worked out very well for getting the world connected. The entire rural earth has been neglected. Even in silicon valley my neighborhood only got fiber this year and its saddled with crappy TV bundle deals, bad mobile apps built with wrapped web pages, poor service, and we-will-sell-your-data anti privacy provisions. Starlink has none of that.

[koe123]

I still don't see why it should be one man rather than commonly owned infrastructure.

[natch]

So, communism?

[digitaltrees]

No. A utility like power and water can be private but regulated so that it can’t extract monopoly rent. Or you can create an ecosystem of providers on top of the public infrastructure.

[koe123]

Not necessarily, but in any case not a monopoly. E.g. Elon Musk now owns all highways: better or worse? Some distributed ownership seems useful as it distributes power accordingly.

[natch]

Perhaps a public company then? The symbol could be SPCX. Maybe give some shares to US citizens, like in special accounts maybe? This is sounding oddly familiar.

[digitaltrees]

A public company with weak corporate governance where the board rubber stamps whatever the CEO wants and that CEO happens to own 40% of the stock and 80% of the voting control doesn’t respond to any public concerns. That is a strength. It does allow Elon to execute strategy that might not have public support. That’s also a lot of power to place in the hands of one person.

As Aristotle said, all forms of government have a good form and a corrupt form. A just king can be highly effective and create human flourishing but a bad king is highly destructive. A good democracy and tyranny of the mob majority are equivalent. We need checks and balances in all forms of human organization. SpaceX has no checks or at least is on a path to where there will be none.

Elon recently said, if his plans go as expected, SpaceX will be more valuable the earth. And he is right. How is humanity going to have checks and balances when that happens?

[natch]

Bezos and others will balance Elon. Be glad it’s Elon and not Walz or Hans Dieter. And AIs will be in place doing who knows what, so all our current governance will probably be out the window.

[scarecrowbob]

Yeah, I don't know how this whole ARPANET thing is really going to play out...

[natch]

Looks like you stopped reading after the first sentence.

Or if not, what am I missing?