Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Rockets are just really expensive. It's hard to get stuff into orbit cheaply, and even now I wouldn't be surprised if Starlink is a net-loss product for SpaceX still.

Google's business strategy for the longest time has revolved around selling software services. AdSense, YouTube, Google Drive - all of these are services they can scale up by turning a knob and waiting for servers to spin up. Rocket science is a whole different ball game, and one that most businesses simply can't justify regardless of the scale they're at.



Rockets are getting quite affordable, especially if you build and operate them at cost. So are satellites, when you mass produce them. If you can do both of those, you can operate an effective and likely profitable internet constellation (and various other constellation use cases if your bus is easily extended or replaced.) Amazon, with Blue Origin's help, has a decent shot. China will have an relatively easy go with it. A couple of smaller players will fill niches with smaller specialized constellations and that'll be good enough and provide internet to most people who can afford it but who live outside of fiber, cable, and cellular coverage (millions of families in the US alone and these LEO constellations are of course global by nature.)


Starlink is reportedly returning a profit now.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/06/ars-live-caleb-henry-j...


Any possibility of in future they can?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: