Here in Africa, starlink brought the internet to hundreds (thousands?) of village schools that probably wouldn't have gotten it for another 10-20 years. From that standpoint, having another...
Here in Africa, starlink brought the internet to hundreds (thousands?) of village schools that probably wouldn't have gotten it for another 10-20 years. From that standpoint, having another competitor come in to drive the price down and increase availability is a big deal.
I'm posting this with the intention of asking Tildesians a couple questions as I'm curious on people's views: Given the current situation, do you view Amazon's Kuiper satellite internet as being...
I'm posting this with the intention of asking Tildesians a couple questions as I'm curious on people's views:
Given the current situation, do you view Amazon's Kuiper satellite internet as being notable more or less evil than SpaceX?
In 2025 are you more or less interested in satellite internet access in general (whether for home or mobile-living use)? In the US there's a big push for home cellular internet, but is that an alternative for your situation?
How do you feel about companies putting satellites into low orbit in general? Apparently GPS satellites are in medium Earth orbit (MEO) at an altitude of approximately 20,200 km (12,550 miles); Starlink orbits at roughly 550 kilometers (342 miles) and there are a lot more of them.
(Or is all of this moot because we're never getting off this rock? ;D)
A lot of Musk's personal worth right now is SpaceX, and a lot of it because Starlink is strategically important. Competition from Blue Origin, the EU and China will bring that down. So this is...
A lot of Musk's personal worth right now is SpaceX, and a lot of it because Starlink is strategically important. Competition from Blue Origin, the EU and China will bring that down. So this is ultimately a good thing.
Less evil, if only just, as having another competitor helps alleviate and distribute any sort of influence on the industry (and world) from SpaceX and Musk. But, SpaceX doesn't have a pure profit...
Given the current situation, do you view Amazon's Kuiper satellite internet as being notable more or less evil than SpaceX?
Less evil, if only just, as having another competitor helps alleviate and distribute any sort of influence on the industry (and world) from SpaceX and Musk.
But, SpaceX doesn't have a pure profit motive to extract as much data as possible to convert to sales and influence consumer decisions, like Amazon would. But, more competition from the big leagues, means more splinter groups to form startups and increase competition, further reducing his influence (which is already minimal, as Shotwell, is really the person in charge over there).
In 2025 are you more or less interested in satellite internet access in general (whether for home or mobile-living use)? In the US there's a big push for home cellular internet, but is that an alternative for your situation?
I have a Fiber 2Gig line, that often reaches about 80% of that in testing, sometimes slower, sometimes faster. I am interested in satellite as I plan on moving more 'rural' (within an hour of a major metropolis) and trying to start an intentional living community for autonomous and artistic research and development, sometime in the future (~5-10 years) and having more competitors and options now is better than waiting another few years for them to start. More competition in this sector is incredibly needed. Even outside of my research park concept, not being physically tied to one or two monolithic companies in any area would be incredibly beneficial for all consumers. More competition is needed.
Apparently GPS satellites are in medium Earth orbit (MEO) at an altitude of approximately 20,200 km (12,550 miles); Starlink orbits at roughly 550 kilometers (342 miles) and there are a lot more of them.
The Kuiper Satellites (I hope they change that name for consumer use) are supposed to be operating even closer than SpaceX at ~260mi. And, if you want a comparison to 'old style' internet satellite systems, systems such as Viasat operate at double the GPS range, at around 20,000mi iirc.
How do you feel about companies putting satellites into low orbit in general?
Mixed. I love the night sky and wish it wasn't obstructed as much as possible, but my interest in looking up to the night sky is far less than my interest in instant communication and the ability to stargaze through digital images taken in real-time from satellites and telescopes that have much broader ranges, clarity, and possibility. Plus, even as a kid, I loved watching satellites moving in the night sky far more than any star a few million years in the past. I have outlined a few more thoughts below.
On space debris: I have less worries than I used to do on the 'space debris' problem, as most will burn up in the atmosphere, but as they get closer and lower in earths orbit, the risk of these causing personal individual injuries from shrapnel, or worse, wild fires, grows with more satellites, lower orbits, and the like, but the possibilities of instant, cheap, advanced, instant communication and more research into achieving lower cost launches and reaching any orbit, lower and upper, is far more advantageous as a human species.
On environmental effects: Alternatively, from a climate change perspective, more space debris may be part of the solution to help reduce the effects of climate change, as we reflect more and more of the suns rays from the earth from the physical structure of satellites, or even the use of ambient satellite radiation to help shield us from the suns rays, it will helps us deal with the increasing carbon in our atmosphere from heating up. Even if it's 1% effective, that might save us from absolute Tank Girl and/or Water World levels of global devastation.
On the future of humanity: If our infrastructure can evade physical borders, then we are one step closer to a "united earth", and possible federation ideals. As someone who desperately feels our world and species must seed the universe with life and ideas, then I feel any research and focus on space industrialization is a net-positive. A satellite in the sky is a beacon of hope, ideas, and possibilities, and will inspire (and require) more and more of the populace to work in the aerospace industry, leading to new and innovative ways to get there, build there, and expand from there. The earth is a dandelion, and we should be drifting in the breeze of the universe, expanding in every direction, harnessing new energies and ideas in the trillions.
Edit: Make clearer, separate some thoughts, expand on climate change effects, etc, update stats, etcetra etc &c.
My views: No, it is not more or less "evil" than SpaceX. It is as evil as SpaceX; it's still just billionaires flinging junk into space. I am far, far less interested in satellite internet access...
My views:
No, it is not more or less "evil" than SpaceX. It is as evil as SpaceX; it's still just billionaires flinging junk into space.
I am far, far less interested in satellite internet access in general. Paying billionaires and companies money for what is increasingly becoming a required common utility makes no sense. It should be treated accordingly, in my opinion.
I feel like it's a terrible idea. It's increasing the amount of junk in LEO, and given the cavalier attitude by the billionaires funding these efforts it's going to increase the amount of debris in space. This affects our ability to observe the cosmos, increases the likelihood of damage and catastrophic failure for other objects in LEO, increases the chances of something in a decaying orbit crashing back onto the planet ... and all for what?
I understand there's use cases for folks living in very rural areas that may not have access to cell service level internet, coax cable, DSL, fiber, or what not. I still don't believe that Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos are the answer to their needs.
Just a point on no. 3, these actually dont pollute LEO in the long term. They are put in a decaying orbit intentionally, one that will decay in a year or 2 once the satellite runs out of fuel....
Just a point on no. 3, these actually dont pollute LEO in the long term. They are put in a decaying orbit intentionally, one that will decay in a year or 2 once the satellite runs out of fuel. They are also not large enough to reach the ground before vaporizing during re-entry. From a space junk perspective, geostationary satellites are a bit worse, as they never have enough fuel to do a full de-orbit burn, so they instead adjust their orbit to a nearby designated graveyard orbit. The problem with that is that if the satellite breaks down before its end of life, it will stay in geostationary, and never reach the graveyard.
That burn up is also one of those "if everything works perfectly forever." And things never work perfectly forever. In the hundreds of years scale, yes, it will all burn up. But it could take decades.
That burn up is also one of those "if everything works perfectly forever." And things never work perfectly forever.
In the hundreds of years scale, yes, it will all burn up. But it could take decades.
spaceX (I know, unreliable source, but I haven't seen anybody contesting the calculations) claim 5 years max for passive drag, while attempting to actively deorbit with thrusters to target away...
spaceX (I know, unreliable source, but I haven't seen anybody contesting the calculations) claim 5 years max for passive drag, while attempting to actively deorbit with thrusters to target away from land
Less evil than SpaceX, if only because it needs to appear so at this point in time. I'm more interested than ever before, since I always lived in big cities and take high-speed internet for...
Less evil than SpaceX, if only because it needs to appear so at this point in time.
I'm more interested than ever before, since I always lived in big cities and take high-speed internet for granted. Being rural now, it's significant.
I don't like space junk crowding the earth, and I do feel that having a dark sky is worth defending. But this is one of those cases where we can generate so much more good than bad, by providing reliable, accessible internet to the entire world, and possibly aid in military peacekeeping and defense operations.
Having a non Musk option is worth a lot right now. But what I'm most interested in is a Canadian option, TeleSat . There was also whispers of EU network as well.[edit: the OneWeb] We probably don't need for every nation to have their own, and there's probably option to rent use or share, but the fact that there are other options mean it'll be less of a monopoly and less of a defense risk.
About the same Not interested currently, as I tend to live in or near major metros where fiber is available, but there’s a decent chance that could change in the future. Cellular is a decent...
About the same
Not interested currently, as I tend to live in or near major metros where fiber is available, but there’s a decent chance that could change in the future. Cellular is a decent option in some cases but I believe there’s probably less overlap between cell and LEO satellite than some may think.
Mixed. It’s a necessity for a large number of people, but there is substantial room for trouble with collisions and such.
Overall I think it’s important to remember how we got here. The entire reason that Starlink and similar are economically viable is due to incumbent telcos not only doing everything in their power to prevent competition but having also refused to put in the work required to adequately serve rural, semi-rural, and in some cases even semi-urban areas, despite having been showered in government money for promises to do so. As such, I feel that some degree of the ire directed at LEO sat internet should also be directed at traditional telcos.
I wish it were a company other than Amazon. However, I'll take competition for SpaceX (almost) no matter where it comes from. Mostly I'm happy about this because it indicates that launching...
I wish it were a company other than Amazon. However, I'll take competition for SpaceX (almost) no matter where it comes from. Mostly I'm happy about this because it indicates that launching satellites is becoming more feasible, suggesting that competition will hopefully continue improving.
I live in a very rural area, and satellite internet access is something we almost invested in. Fortunately, the Australian government has rolled out fixed wireless to the farm where I live, so I am all good now. However, a whole lot of my neighbors living in valleys and ravines rely on Starlink for basic communication (they can't even use the mobile network — I barely can myself), so I do still feel personally invested in seeing how satellite internet evolves in the future.
There are no doubt many foreseen and likely unforeseen problems with it, but I don't see a lot of good alternatives at this point in time.
It's exactly as evil, but without as much political influence at the moment. I just got fiber in my small town and I'm loving it. Shy of me ever fulfilling my dream of living somewhere more...
It's exactly as evil, but without as much political influence at the moment.
I just got fiber in my small town and I'm loving it. Shy of me ever fulfilling my dream of living somewhere more remote, I don't have much of a need for satellite internet. The technology is incredibly cool, and part of me wants it just for the novelty, but there's no need.
I don't mind satellites in LEO, but the amount needed for these arrays is ridiculous and the more companies who do this, the worse the problem is going to get.
I don't love this kind of framework for any project like this. The project could be launched by the best company in the world and it's still going to have negative impacts beyond the personalities...
Given the current situation, do you view Amazon's Kuiper satellite internet as being notable more or less evil than SpaceX?
I don't love this kind of framework for any project like this. The project could be launched by the best company in the world and it's still going to have negative impacts beyond the personalities of who's getting rich off of it. Any competition is good, but i'm doubtful 2 megacorps in the scene are going to do anything other than choke out competition and then jack up prices on consumers.
In 2025 are you more or less interested in satellite internet access in general (whether for home or mobile-living use)? In the US there's a big push for home cellular internet, but is that an alternative for your situation?
I'd prefer a hardline whenever I can. I get that's not reasonable for everyone and having satellite as an "oh shit" fall back alongside mobile would be nice, but personally I don't want yet another standard that turns into something even harder to build infrastructure for. Laying new fiber isn't easy, and requires government mandate, but oops we've got all these private companies who happen to run it. Launching satellites is even worse.
How do you feel about companies putting satellites into low orbit in general? Apparently GPS satellites are in medium Earth orbit (MEO) at an altitude of approximately 20,200 km (12,550 miles); Starlink orbits at roughly 550 kilometers (342 miles) and there are a lot more of them.
It'll eventually be problematic. It's unfortunate as hell for anyone in astronomy, and I'm still curious about the actual turn around/cost on just constantly having to launch more. As with all emerging services we're well in the honeymoon phase of "attract customers/attention" but I have serious questions about the long term costs of projects like this.
The thing about satellite internet is that yes, you have to constantly launch satellites into space, and yes, that is extraordinarily expensive, but the thing that makes it work economically is...
The thing about satellite internet is that yes, you have to constantly launch satellites into space, and yes, that is extraordinarily expensive, but the thing that makes it work economically is not having to deal with the last mile problem. The last mile problem is notoriously the most difficult and expensive problem ISPs have to deal with. Yes, they need to set up peering at cross connect sites with massive routers, that's expensive. Yes, they need to build head ends in each city and run fiber to them, and then they need to build nodes in each neighborhood and run fiber to those, but the real expense is digging and laying fiber to each and every house that wants internet. That means individually negotiating with local utilities that own conduit, or boring/trenching yourself through thousands and thousands of subcontractors, all who need to make their own profit.
It's so ludicrously expensive to do that launching a literal rocket into space can be competitive, because it lets you avoid doing all that. All you need are ground uplink stations in a few key cities, a way to launch the satellites, and then you just ship ground station equipment to customers.
Yeah I can see that. Of course that's really the irony in all this in that a HUGE part of that last mile cost is all the little things. This is where yes it'd be nice to just have a federal...
Yeah I can see that.
Of course that's really the irony in all this in that a HUGE part of that last mile cost is all the little things. This is where yes it'd be nice to just have a federal mandate that says "internet goes here" and you'd in theory cut a lot of the cost, but in reality you'd just wind up with MORE hands trying to get a slice of the pie.
Yeah, it's just a really tough problem to solve. In theory, it would be nice if there was a unified federal building code that demanded fiber lines be installed in new constructions, and new...
Yeah, it's just a really tough problem to solve. In theory, it would be nice if there was a unified federal building code that demanded fiber lines be installed in new constructions, and new neighborhoods had to install giant multi-strand trunk lines with local nodes that were all considered shared infrastructure that the telcos lease for a modest, affordable fee, and play nice with each other for, but there's just way too much lobbyist money involved for that to ever happen.
The huge cost of all that stuff is what keeps ISP startup costs high and pretty much procludes meaningful competition in the market, which of course ATT, Comcast, CenturyLink, et. all love. They don't have to compete on quality, service, speed, or even price, because in most areas there's at most one other option, and they're usually just as bad.
But yeah, it's a massive waste and kind of sad when you consider the sheer scale of the wasted human effort that comes from building things that are already built.
I've always seen Amazon as (I feel) more evil than my friends and acquaintances. I think they are allowed to get away with a lot of crazy shit when it comes to unfair monopolistic competition,...
I've always seen Amazon as (I feel) more evil than my friends and acquaintances. I think they are allowed to get away with a lot of crazy shit when it comes to unfair monopolistic competition, competing against their own customers, mistreating their employees, etc. That said, all competition is good competition. If there are two billionnaires I don't like, I'm happy to see them knock each other down.
I'm a social VR user, so I want latency zero. Give me an ansible already!
LEO satellites do not worry me for their potential as debris. Their closeness is ultimately a good thing since we can ultimately get rid of the constellation with relative ease by just putting a stop to satellite replacement if we as a society decide that we should do so (assuming decisions are still being made democratically).
I would prefer the space satellites of Philip-Morris-Disney-Fox-AT&T-AOL-Time-Warner-PepsiCo-Viacom-Halliburton-Skynet-Toyota-Trader-Joe's over Amazon or SpaceX.
I would prefer the space satellites of Philip-Morris-Disney-Fox-AT&T-AOL-Time-Warner-PepsiCo-Viacom-Halliburton-Skynet-Toyota-Trader-Joe's over Amazon or SpaceX.
Here in Africa, starlink brought the internet to hundreds (thousands?) of village schools that probably wouldn't have gotten it for another 10-20 years. From that standpoint, having another competitor come in to drive the price down and increase availability is a big deal.
I'm posting this with the intention of asking Tildesians a couple questions as I'm curious on people's views:
(Or is all of this moot because we're never getting off this rock? ;D)
A lot of Musk's personal worth right now is SpaceX, and a lot of it because Starlink is strategically important. Competition from Blue Origin, the EU and China will bring that down. So this is ultimately a good thing.
Less evil, if only just, as having another competitor helps alleviate and distribute any sort of influence on the industry (and world) from SpaceX and Musk.
But, SpaceX doesn't have a pure profit motive to extract as much data as possible to convert to sales and influence consumer decisions, like Amazon would. But, more competition from the big leagues, means more splinter groups to form startups and increase competition, further reducing his influence (which is already minimal, as Shotwell, is really the person in charge over there).
I have a Fiber 2Gig line, that often reaches about 80% of that in testing, sometimes slower, sometimes faster. I am interested in satellite as I plan on moving more 'rural' (within an hour of a major metropolis) and trying to start an intentional living community for autonomous and artistic research and development, sometime in the future (~5-10 years) and having more competitors and options now is better than waiting another few years for them to start. More competition in this sector is incredibly needed. Even outside of my research park concept, not being physically tied to one or two monolithic companies in any area would be incredibly beneficial for all consumers. More competition is needed.
The Kuiper Satellites (I hope they change that name for consumer use) are supposed to be operating even closer than SpaceX at ~260mi. And, if you want a comparison to 'old style' internet satellite systems, systems such as Viasat operate at double the GPS range, at around 20,000mi iirc.
Mixed. I love the night sky and wish it wasn't obstructed as much as possible, but my interest in looking up to the night sky is far less than my interest in instant communication and the ability to stargaze through digital images taken in real-time from satellites and telescopes that have much broader ranges, clarity, and possibility. Plus, even as a kid, I loved watching satellites moving in the night sky far more than any star a few million years in the past. I have outlined a few more thoughts below.
On space debris: I have less worries than I used to do on the 'space debris' problem, as most will burn up in the atmosphere, but as they get closer and lower in earths orbit, the risk of these causing personal individual injuries from shrapnel, or worse, wild fires, grows with more satellites, lower orbits, and the like, but the possibilities of instant, cheap, advanced, instant communication and more research into achieving lower cost launches and reaching any orbit, lower and upper, is far more advantageous as a human species.
On environmental effects: Alternatively, from a climate change perspective, more space debris may be part of the solution to help reduce the effects of climate change, as we reflect more and more of the suns rays from the earth from the physical structure of satellites, or even the use of ambient satellite radiation to help shield us from the suns rays, it will helps us deal with the increasing carbon in our atmosphere from heating up. Even if it's 1% effective, that might save us from absolute Tank Girl and/or Water World levels of global devastation.
On the future of humanity: If our infrastructure can evade physical borders, then we are one step closer to a "united earth", and possible federation ideals. As someone who desperately feels our world and species must seed the universe with life and ideas, then I feel any research and focus on space industrialization is a net-positive. A satellite in the sky is a beacon of hope, ideas, and possibilities, and will inspire (and require) more and more of the populace to work in the aerospace industry, leading to new and innovative ways to get there, build there, and expand from there. The earth is a dandelion, and we should be drifting in the breeze of the universe, expanding in every direction, harnessing new energies and ideas in the trillions.
Edit: Make clearer, separate some thoughts, expand on climate change effects, etc, update stats, etcetra etc &c.
My views:
No, it is not more or less "evil" than SpaceX. It is as evil as SpaceX; it's still just billionaires flinging junk into space.
I am far, far less interested in satellite internet access in general. Paying billionaires and companies money for what is increasingly becoming a required common utility makes no sense. It should be treated accordingly, in my opinion.
I feel like it's a terrible idea. It's increasing the amount of junk in LEO, and given the cavalier attitude by the billionaires funding these efforts it's going to increase the amount of debris in space. This affects our ability to observe the cosmos, increases the likelihood of damage and catastrophic failure for other objects in LEO, increases the chances of something in a decaying orbit crashing back onto the planet ... and all for what?
I understand there's use cases for folks living in very rural areas that may not have access to cell service level internet, coax cable, DSL, fiber, or what not. I still don't believe that Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos are the answer to their needs.
Just a point on no. 3, these actually dont pollute LEO in the long term. They are put in a decaying orbit intentionally, one that will decay in a year or 2 once the satellite runs out of fuel. They are also not large enough to reach the ground before vaporizing during re-entry. From a space junk perspective, geostationary satellites are a bit worse, as they never have enough fuel to do a full de-orbit burn, so they instead adjust their orbit to a nearby designated graveyard orbit. The problem with that is that if the satellite breaks down before its end of life, it will stay in geostationary, and never reach the graveyard.
That burn up is also one of those "if everything works perfectly forever." And things never work perfectly forever.
In the hundreds of years scale, yes, it will all burn up. But it could take decades.
spaceX (I know, unreliable source, but I haven't seen anybody contesting the calculations) claim 5 years max for passive drag, while attempting to actively deorbit with thrusters to target away from land
Less evil than SpaceX, if only because it needs to appear so at this point in time.
I'm more interested than ever before, since I always lived in big cities and take high-speed internet for granted. Being rural now, it's significant.
I don't like space junk crowding the earth, and I do feel that having a dark sky is worth defending. But this is one of those cases where we can generate so much more good than bad, by providing reliable, accessible internet to the entire world, and possibly aid in military peacekeeping and defense operations.
Having a non Musk option is worth a lot right now. But what I'm most interested in is a Canadian option, TeleSat . There was also whispers of EU network as well.[edit: the OneWeb] We probably don't need for every nation to have their own, and there's probably option to rent use or share, but the fact that there are other options mean it'll be less of a monopoly and less of a defense risk.
Overall I think it’s important to remember how we got here. The entire reason that Starlink and similar are economically viable is due to incumbent telcos not only doing everything in their power to prevent competition but having also refused to put in the work required to adequately serve rural, semi-rural, and in some cases even semi-urban areas, despite having been showered in government money for promises to do so. As such, I feel that some degree of the ire directed at LEO sat internet should also be directed at traditional telcos.
I wish it were a company other than Amazon. However, I'll take competition for SpaceX (almost) no matter where it comes from. Mostly I'm happy about this because it indicates that launching satellites is becoming more feasible, suggesting that competition will hopefully continue improving.
I live in a very rural area, and satellite internet access is something we almost invested in. Fortunately, the Australian government has rolled out fixed wireless to the farm where I live, so I am all good now. However, a whole lot of my neighbors living in valleys and ravines rely on Starlink for basic communication (they can't even use the mobile network — I barely can myself), so I do still feel personally invested in seeing how satellite internet evolves in the future.
There are no doubt many foreseen and likely unforeseen problems with it, but I don't see a lot of good alternatives at this point in time.
I don't love this kind of framework for any project like this. The project could be launched by the best company in the world and it's still going to have negative impacts beyond the personalities of who's getting rich off of it. Any competition is good, but i'm doubtful 2 megacorps in the scene are going to do anything other than choke out competition and then jack up prices on consumers.
I'd prefer a hardline whenever I can. I get that's not reasonable for everyone and having satellite as an "oh shit" fall back alongside mobile would be nice, but personally I don't want yet another standard that turns into something even harder to build infrastructure for. Laying new fiber isn't easy, and requires government mandate, but oops we've got all these private companies who happen to run it. Launching satellites is even worse.
It'll eventually be problematic. It's unfortunate as hell for anyone in astronomy, and I'm still curious about the actual turn around/cost on just constantly having to launch more. As with all emerging services we're well in the honeymoon phase of "attract customers/attention" but I have serious questions about the long term costs of projects like this.
The thing about satellite internet is that yes, you have to constantly launch satellites into space, and yes, that is extraordinarily expensive, but the thing that makes it work economically is not having to deal with the last mile problem. The last mile problem is notoriously the most difficult and expensive problem ISPs have to deal with. Yes, they need to set up peering at cross connect sites with massive routers, that's expensive. Yes, they need to build head ends in each city and run fiber to them, and then they need to build nodes in each neighborhood and run fiber to those, but the real expense is digging and laying fiber to each and every house that wants internet. That means individually negotiating with local utilities that own conduit, or boring/trenching yourself through thousands and thousands of subcontractors, all who need to make their own profit.
It's so ludicrously expensive to do that launching a literal rocket into space can be competitive, because it lets you avoid doing all that. All you need are ground uplink stations in a few key cities, a way to launch the satellites, and then you just ship ground station equipment to customers.
Yeah I can see that.
Of course that's really the irony in all this in that a HUGE part of that last mile cost is all the little things. This is where yes it'd be nice to just have a federal mandate that says "internet goes here" and you'd in theory cut a lot of the cost, but in reality you'd just wind up with MORE hands trying to get a slice of the pie.
Yeah, it's just a really tough problem to solve. In theory, it would be nice if there was a unified federal building code that demanded fiber lines be installed in new constructions, and new neighborhoods had to install giant multi-strand trunk lines with local nodes that were all considered shared infrastructure that the telcos lease for a modest, affordable fee, and play nice with each other for, but there's just way too much lobbyist money involved for that to ever happen.
The huge cost of all that stuff is what keeps ISP startup costs high and pretty much procludes meaningful competition in the market, which of course ATT, Comcast, CenturyLink, et. all love. They don't have to compete on quality, service, speed, or even price, because in most areas there's at most one other option, and they're usually just as bad.
But yeah, it's a massive waste and kind of sad when you consider the sheer scale of the wasted human effort that comes from building things that are already built.
I've always seen Amazon as (I feel) more evil than my friends and acquaintances. I think they are allowed to get away with a lot of crazy shit when it comes to unfair monopolistic competition, competing against their own customers, mistreating their employees, etc. That said, all competition is good competition. If there are two billionnaires I don't like, I'm happy to see them knock each other down.
I'm a social VR user, so I want latency zero. Give me an ansible already!
LEO satellites do not worry me for their potential as debris. Their closeness is ultimately a good thing since we can ultimately get rid of the constellation with relative ease by just putting a stop to satellite replacement if we as a society decide that we should do so (assuming decisions are still being made democratically).
I bet the astronomers are really thrilled about having even more noise/garbage in measurements from their ground telescopes.
I would prefer the space satellites of Philip-Morris-Disney-Fox-AT&T-AOL-Time-Warner-PepsiCo-Viacom-Halliburton-Skynet-Toyota-Trader-Joe's over Amazon or SpaceX.