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[jelv]

Alex, you've made some telling points about why aspects of Starlink are not a good idea, but nothing that supports your point that it is "doomed to fail".

[Alex Atkin UK]

I kinda expecting to not have to post every single video I've watched about it, especially the multitude thunderf00t has done.

Trouble is outside of that, its hard to find people looking at this that do not directly quote SpaceX claims and aspiration, rather than examining if their claims are remotely plausible.

https://www.prindleinstitute.org/2022/03/why-starlink-isnt-leaving-enough-space/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TxkE_oYrjU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IRDmNer7_I

[celso]

I was going to watch that thunderf00t video since it was a "good" one, but ended up only watching the first few minutes.

He starts by talking about the cost to launch a Falcon 9 and quotes/shows the numbers on the Wikipedia page. So I went to Wikipedia to see what their sources are and they use the this official PDF for a "new" launch (the cost changed since then) and for the "reusable" launch, they quote this news article.

Small problem... This is what SpaceX was charging customers, not what it costs them to launch. Yet, from my quick skipping, he seems to use this as the real cost and part of his argument is based on that. The site where the $50M number for reusable launches comes from also said that the real cost could be as low as $37M.

He may make good points throughout the video, but it starts with misleading/wrong information... so Alex, you may like his videos, but I wouldn't take everything in without checking the sources. Check the comments and you'll find people pointing out other issues with the video.

Anyway, I think I'm done pointing out how wrong these costs seem to be. If that's what you want to believe, then I'm not going to insist. Time will tell if they can be successful or not.

Regarding the number of satellites, if Starlink alone is such a massive problem, imagine how bad it will be when every other constellation from different countries and companies are deployed. I'm not saying that we shouldn't make noise, but we're past the "is it worth doing this?" stage. This is happening. Smarter people than me should start working on some kind of collision avoidance and we should do something on a political and international level (how to dispose of satellites, collision avoidance, etc).

[Alex Atkin UK]

Honestly its hard to keep everything straight, he's made so many videos on this.  The gist over all of them seemed to be that even if they costs are an order of magnitude lower, it would still be too expensive.  The problem with all this I think is SpaceX make bold claims based on what they they hope they can achieve, so its impossible to get actual real-world figures to work with.  At least in some videos I feel TF covers this, but with so many, its hard to find the right ones without watching many hours and hours of content.

Its clear to me TF is not merely anti-Musk though, he is pro-science, and gets frustrated when claims are made that are unrealistic.  If SpaceX where to make an actual breakthrough that is economically and environmentally sound, I feel comfortable in saying he would report on that too in a positive light.  He doesn't want anyone to fail, he just despises throwing good money after bad at things that are unlikely to ever deliver the claimed result, or will have huge detrimental impact on other things to do so.

This is especially true when Musk claims to be environmentally friendly, which if were being honest, no space program can be due to the huge amount of energy required to launch.  There has to be enough benefits to outweigh the drawbacks, which does not seem to be something he actually considers.  Not surprising, he is a business man after all, but there are a lot of people who worship him as if he is the second coming of christ, rather than just a man who made a ton of money on the backs of other people and has actually been pretty corrupt in how he has run every business since.  Its quite the contrast compared to Bill Gates who suddenly is treated like the devil, yet seems to have done far more good for humanity than Musk has, not that I trust any billionaire to have altruistic goals.  You do not become and remain rich by being altruistic.

There is too much focus in a lot of sectors on economic benefits, rather than the sustainability of the human race itself.  So even if Starlink IS economically viable, it doesn't mean its sustainable either through the space junk problem or the energy required to maintain it.  SpaceX have already ignored the potential catastrophic impact of a failed launch to the environment and endangered species around their test site.

[Alex Atkin UK]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qGg6wiXoSc

[celso]

Call them out if they want someone to pay everything for all costs so far (assuming that's what they're doing and not asking for someone to pay for things from now on), especially if they lied about providing service for free and criticise Musk all you want for having tantrums on twitter... I'll even join you, but c'mon man...

thunderf00t (again the same guy?) starts by getting the prices wrong as Starlink now starts at $60, not $100. Easy mistake to make, so let's ignore it. But then he goes on to say the most expensive Starlink service costs $500 when any "expert" should know that they have more expensive services (eg: Maritime for $5000), closer to the $4500 the blurred screenshot shows.

He then implies that SpaceX was disrupting the service during counter-offensives... pay me X or I'll shut down the service! On my first comment here back in June I mentioned this: https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-pentagon-russian-jamming-attack-elon-musk-dave-tremper-2022-4

So we know that the Russians are jamming the service and anyone making comments about combat should also know by now that Russia deploys electronic warfare equipment near the front. It doesn't take a genius to understand that the closer you are to the front, the worse this gets or that Russia will try to disrupt Starlink and other forms of communication during counter-offensives. And it's not only Starlink... GPS, normal cell service, etc.

You've posted some bad videos here, but this one probably takes the crown.

[I'm not commenting on tax breaks, contracts from the government, etc, because I don't follow that, but keep in mind that SpaceX is nothing compared to Boeing, Lockheed Martin, ULA, etc.]

A few questions for you Alex:

- I've been spending more time than I should watching videos from this war and so far I haven't seen any Ukrainian command centre/vehicle with Starlink... so how do we know if they're using the $60 service/equipment? I've seen normal dishes, but usually used by civilians or by solders behind the front lines. It would be nice to have a source on this... their military seems to be good at OPSec and this guy, which can't get product prices or launch costs right, has access to that info?

- If the $60 service is enough, why not use that instead? You don't even need donations for that.

- A HIMARS launch costs between 1 and 5 million dollars depending on how many rockets they launch. Ukraine is using this a lot (good for them!). We're talking about 1 million per rocket... and we're complaining about $4500 for something that is so important for the way they operate? An example, also linked on my first comment here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIS_Arta . There are rumours of them having some system to know where their vehicles are and coordinate them better.

- Having someone adapting the service to fight Russian jamming has no costs?

- If there's nothing special about this service, why not use alternatives like Viasat? That's supposed to be good enough for satellite internet, right?

- Do you really expect every company to continue to support Ukraine for free indefinitely?

- Have you finally realised that the videos and your own maths were missing a lot of revenue from military (and other) sources?

I find my self agreeing less and less with Musk, but Alex... those videos are full of BS and wrong information. The service disruption thing, for example, how can you fall for that when it's public that the service is being jammed in Ukraine?

(Edit: tax break, not brake lol. )

[Moderator edited to remove the unnecessary inclusion of the above YouTube video in this reply.]

[Alex Atkin UK]

- Having someone adapting the service to fight Russian jamming has no costs?

- If there's nothing special about this service, why not use alternatives like Viasat? That's supposed to be good enough for satellite internet, right?

- Do you really expect every company to continue to support Ukraine for free indefinitely?

- Have you finally realised that the videos and your own maths were missing a lot of revenue from military (and other) sources?

I find my self agreeing less and less with Musk, but Alex... those videos are full of BS and wrong information. The service disruption thing, for example, how can you fall for that when it's public that the service is being jammed in Ukraine?

Its not so much the specifics, its the fact Musk milked his "donation" of Starlink service to Ukraine to win brownie points, when we now know he did no such thing, it was at least partly funded by several countries.  Its the way he is consistently dishonest about the things he does and that it was foolish to do this in the first place, knowing Ukraine are possibly in no position to fund this.

Also absolutely uncalled for that he told Ukraine to give Russia what they want.  It does make everything that happened since more suspicious, even if you are right and it could equally have been Russia jamming the signal.

I do appreciate your take on this, as I don't have the energy or mental state to look into all the fine details myself (I suffer from anxiety, depression and fibromyalgia, so I can't really focus well on in-depth research) so I posted it hoping you would give me feedback like this, at least so I would know what angles to look at it from.

[celso]

The problem with Musk is that the guy keeps talking. There are a few companies in the US that make way more money from government contracts in the defence/space sector. Look at the Space Launch System (SLS) (it makes SpaceX's Starship look cheap in comparison) or at the help car manufactures got after the market crash in 2007-10 (how much they received, their repayments, and compare it to Tesla). They all make money quietly and no one knows who their CEOs are because they're not talking sh*t on Twitter.

He wants to talk, put "ideas out there", milk stuff for good PR? Then he should take the heat. He gets mad when someone tweets something bad at him and says he's going to stop providing service to Ukraine? Yeah, it's bad, it should be pointed out. With this said, we should ask ourselves why do we care so much about his opinion and suggestions. I mean, who the hell is Elon Musk? I don't get it. Reminds me of the cult following around the Kardashians.

My first reaction to his idea to appease Russia was to ask if we're going to give land to every dictator that threatens to use their nukes. Then I read that he also made some comments about Taiwan and was asking if it's wi$e for someone working with the US government to say things that go against their policy (I'd be surprised if they're not turning the screws on him as we speak). I don't agree with him, find it very low to make comments in exchange for benefits in countries where his companies operate, but in practice nothing changes. No one will change their policies because Musk wants to appease Putin or make Xi Jinping happy.

Regarding the outages, it was suggested by "Ukrainian officials" (see this FT article: original, without paywall) that it was intentional. To quote the article, « One of them said: “If it’s jamming this cannot be changed so quickly.” »

It may be true, I don't have any inside information, but I have questions.

- This is happening more in some areas than others, often near the front lines. "One person overseeing dozens of Starlink devices along the frontline said those that were offline in some newly liberated locations".
- The article mentions the south (Kherson) as one of the areas more affected. Apparently that's where Russia has some of their best forces (eg: VDV) and was using more advanced equipment (eg: many of the videos of shut down Ka-52 attack helicopters are from this region).
- The comment from the "ukranian official" about not being possible to fight jamming this fast goes against the "american official" that praised them for being fast.
- If this is caused by "SpaceX-imposed geographical restrictions" why do some devices still work? Why are there failures in areas where Musk doesn't think they should be just given away to Russia?
- If there are geo restrictions, could they be there so Russia doesn't get access to the service too? Ukraine made some big advances in the Kherson area... how fast can they unlock new service "cells" and are they receiving real time info about advances from Ukrainian forces?

Jamming is certainly going on because Russia knows this is important for Ukraine (they hacked their main comms provider - Viasat - when the full invasion started). Maybe SpaceX also stopped service to the equipment they donated, but left everything else running? Could explain this paragraph:

"A US official said they were aware of the Starlink issue but that there was more nuance to it. Western officials said Russian jamming could explain some of the outages."

How did we get here? Going back to February:

- Ukraine had almost no comms during the first weeks of the war (Starlink was important for them because of this).
- SpaceX starts building bases around (maybe even inside) Ukraine, donates some terminals, etc, with the blessing of the US government.
- More people start donating/paying for Starlink themselves. Musk keeps benefiting from the good PR because they're using Starlink.
- SpaceX continues to work around jamming, adding capacity, replacing lost equipment, etc. This costs money and adds to the price of the service.
- Ukraine asks for more terminals.
- Musk looks at everyone "helping Ukraine" while receiving sh*t tons of money and says that the US government should "fund the Starlink service" because it's costing him money. They're dealing with someone with deep pockets and quote them more than $60 per terminal.
- The Pentagon doesn't pick up the tab in September, Musk goes on Twitter and says they can't keep providing the service for free.
- His "peace plan" + reaction to it + publicly saying they can't keep providing the service for free blows up in his face.
- The tweet from Musk about keeping the service running says a lot about his thinking: "The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free"

Musk is trying to make money with the war, which is bad (we really need to stop glorifying these guys...), but he's only one of the many doing it. Do you think arms manufacturers that gave free weapons didn't tell them that they couldn't keep giving stuff away for free? The difference is that they're not dumb enough to say that on Twitter.

With all the money being spent, $4500 is a drop in the ocean when dozens of $1 million HIMARS rockets are launched every day. They can charge 20 million a month for internet services... that's the equivalent of 4 HIMARS launches. Can you see how ridiculous all this is when you look at the total cost of the war?

That video from thunderf00t "triggers" me for a few reasons. Yes, Musk doesn't care about you and it's not a nice guy, but the wrong information and one sided views are aimed at his core following of Musk hatters.

Do you know why it's a 14 minute video even though it could be 5 minutes long? Because YouTube only lets you add "mid roll" ads every 8 minutes or so. And indeed, while trying to watch the video without an adblocker, YouTube shows me 2 ads at the start, another 2 around minute 7, and another 2 near the end. What we have here is a YouTuber «drama profiteering» while complaining about «Musk's war profiteering"».

I stop following content creators for less (eg: clickbait titles), so you can see why this guy is way, way past my "red line" of what's acceptable.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Do you know why it's a 14 minute video even though it could be 5 minutes long? Because YouTube only lets you add "mid roll" ads every 8 minutes or so. And indeed, while trying to watch the video without an adblocker, YouTube shows me 2 ads at the start, another 2 around minute 7, and another 2 near the end. What we have here is a YouTuber «drama profiteering» while complaining about «Musk's war profiteering"».

I stop following content creators for less (eg: clickbait titles), so you can see why this guy is way, way past my "red line" of what's acceptable.

Unfortunately its not as simple as ad revenue, its about getting the algorithm to even recommend your video to people.

When you are posting questionable material that gets demonetised or party demonetised, ads are of zero benefit for the creator.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLW8WEwhg5w

I don't think thunderf00t is doing this for the money, he is a scientist trying to get people to look objectively at this where Musk followers seem to completely lack objective thinking skills.  Perhaps he is the wrong person to be doing this, its not his area of expertise, but I'm glad someone is.

If you look at his other channel the last few videos he is more qualified to talk about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZhV_-crQVg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmKDL3l28aY

Maybe I'm cutting him too much slack, but I think his videos come from a good place especially if you watch his scientific videos.  I think the crusade against Musk is purely from his understandable need to get people to look at the science, to realise that Musk is a snake oil salesman wasting tons of money of projects that are not economically viable.  Its important to everyone that money and natural resources are not wasted on PR projects, as these have real-world impact on the environment and economy.

[celso]

Can't talk about other channels/videos from him, but the ones you've been posting here contain wrong information and leave out important points that don't fit his narrative.

A video about the economic viability of Starlink that doubles the operating costs, ignores sources of revenue, capacity of new satellites/launch vehicle, etc, is not a good video. A video about Tesla future that goes into driving automation and presents "autopilot" and "full self drive" as being the same thing can't be taken seriously.

Cherry picking facts, making others up, using wrong information, etc, is not scientific or objective. If the anti-Musk crowd can't see these issues, then they too lack that same objective thinking skills as the Musk followers.

Some of this is just dumb. Does he need to lie about the cost of existing services when talking about the $4500 (when there's a $5K service), provide no cost context, etc, to make the point Musk wants to be paid for the service in Ukraine?

Only you know why you choose to ignore these "red flags". I can't. If Musk is a snake oil salesman and an a-hole, prove it with real numbers, don't lie, and don't omit information that doesn't fit that view. It's that simple.

Regarding the ads, my salary comes from Google Adsense (not via YouTube though) so I know a thing or two about this. Last time I checked, Google/Youtube didn't add so many ads per video by default (I'm happy to be corrected). If this is a well intentioned guy trying to inform people as you say, then not only he's not leaving much money on the table, but he's also doing a poor job informing because as I've shown - and supported with sources - some of what he says is wrong, incomplete, outdated or misleading.

[Alex Atkin UK]

A video about Tesla future that goes into driving automation and presents "autopilot" and "full self drive" as being the same thing can't be taken seriously.

To be fair, it was Musk himself who kept claiming autopilot was full self driving.

[j0hn]

Do you really expect every company to continue to support Ukraine for free indefinitely?

That wasn't Alex's point.

Musk offered Starlink to Ukraine for free.
He isn't now asking for them to pay for future use. He's asking the US gov to settle much of the current bill.

The guys a clown, an idiot, a numpty.
1 minn he's offering to help the country and the next he's trying to unilaterally give away huge chunks of their country over Twitter.

I've no time for Elon fans boys. They need to take their nose out his arse and smell the air.

[celso]

To be fair, it was Musk himself who kept claiming autopilot was full self driving.

Do you have a source for that?

In any case, if you want to talk about how good/bad their self driving is, you can't make the mistake of mixing the two. You wouldn't take me seriously if I made a video about Mercedes' "self driving" and then proceeded to use their basic line keeping tech to prove how bad their "self driving" is. At least I hope you wouldn't.

As I mentioned before, as a customer, you really have try hard not to understand the difference between the 2 because Tesla really tries to sell you the "Full Sell Drive" (FSD) package.

That wasn't Alex's point.

Musk offered Starlink to Ukraine for free.
He isn't now asking for them to pay for future use. He's asking the US gov to settle much of the current bill.

The guys a clown, an idiot, a numpty.
1 minn he's offering to help the country and the next he's trying to unilaterally give away huge chunks of their country over Twitter.

I've no time for Elon fans boys. They need to take their nose out his arse and smell the air.

j0hn, I'll say it again: I don't think Musk is a nice guy.

I'm not up anyone's arse. You can prove he's a "clown, an idiot, a numpty" without lying... you just have to link to some of his tweets. And that's why I'm "pushing back" against Alex's posts. These videos are based on wrong, false, incomplete, or misleading information.

Musk being a complete twat, taking credit for donations he didn't make, some of his business not being viable, and this youtuber being a bad source of information are not incompatible views.

> "He isn't now asking for them to pay for future use. He's asking the US gov to settle much of the current bill."

I've read the original CNN article (cached) that reported on the "leak", and others on Financial Times (cached), The Guardian, etc. None of them mention paying the tab so far, but instead keeping the service running in the future.

Musk himself said that: "SpaceX is not asking to recoup past expenses, but also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely *and* send several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than typical households. This is unreasonable."

It's possible I missed something. Can you provide a source for this claim? I would change my opinion on this if that's the case.

> 1 minn he's offering to help the country and the next he's trying to unilaterally give away huge chunks of their country over Twitter.

As one of Zelenskyy's advisers said, the help reached them and was (and is) very useful. At the same time, they disagree with Musk's "proposal". I do too, we shouldn't reward Russia's behaviour.

I still don't understand why people care so much about Musk's tweets. "trying to unilaterally give away"? He doesn't have any power to give away territories, doesn't influence US or EU policy, and was told to f*** off. If Starlink stops working, there are other alternatives. People are acting like the guy has power... we're talking about Musk, not Joe Biden.

[celso]

Starlink Aviation: https://www.starlink.com/aviation

According to PC Mag, it costs "$12,500-per-month" and "$150,000" for the antenna/equipment. It's not for us peasants - unless some of you own a personal jet - but airlines that have internet on board will probably look at this as the "bulge" for the the antenna is way smaller[0] than some of the alternatives[1], reducing drag/fuel consumption.

Posting it here as it's another source of revenue some youtubers miss, even though it costs significantly more than the basic home plan.

---

-[0]:

https://i.imgur.com/la3pq7d.png
-[1]:

https://i.imgur.com/iaQlwP9.png

(Edit: The auto link "embedding" can get a bit out of control and mess up posts... :-/ )

[celso]

Starlink now has a 1TB/month cap of "prioritised traffic" between 7am an 11pm.

After using 1TB during "peak hours", traffic from other customers is prioritised. Customers over this limit can get normal speeds by paying $0.25 per GB.

Usage between 11pm and 7am is unlimited and doesn't count to towards this 1TB limit.

From:

- https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/starlink-to-cap-users-at-1tb-of-high-speed-data-unless-they-pay-extra/
- https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1134-82708-70

For reference, their main competitor - Viasat - gives customers 300GB of "priority traffic". I've read that HughesNet limit is even lower, but can't check their plans without using a US post code, so I'm not sure.