Unrelated to the conversation, but the post title was something like "Starlink roam 50GB is now 100GB and unlimited slow speed after that", then a minute later it's now "Roam 50GB is now Roam 100GB".
Was this change made by a mod or OP, and why would someone making that change? I do think the original title was more descriptive, and the new title was completely out of context, or it's imply that everyone is using Starlink and know what's Roam 50GB is.
I'm actually a huge fan of "unlimited slow speeds" as a falloff, instead of a cliff.
Aside from the fact it allows you to work with Starlink to buy more fast speed, it also allows core stuff to continue to function (e.g. basic notifications, non-streaming web traffic, etc).
I would kill for a web renaissance to return to this format of webpages, as least as an option. Not only loading improves, but also navigation and accessibility.
Indeed. That's why, when they finally kill old.reddit, I may legitimately stop using it entirely. They've already banned most of the good apps, forcing the pretty terrible official one.
Recently the old reddit szopped working for me even after going to account settings and opting out of new design again (it was already marked as being opt out) across all my devices. Even after manually navigating to old.reddit.com, clicking any link would take me to new again. I had to install special extensions to reroute to old reddit everywhere.
I've been listening to 32kbit radio streams while on a 64k falloff. It used to be an important feature for me, the 64k up and down. Sounds like nothing, but is usable.
My mobile data plan is like this. It’s funny because when I’m “out of data” my provider sends an SMS suggesting I upgrade to more gigabytes, but then it still continues to work. And yes I checked my bills to make sure that they are not charging me for any usage excess of what’s included in the plan. It’s not even particularly slow. I can still browse the web, send and receive WhatsApp messages, images and videos, watch videos on TikTok etc.
My current plan is 2GB with rollover. Last month I used 2.5GB, and somehow this month has 2GB included + 2GB rollover = 4 GB available which by itself is also weird. Maybe most of the 2.5 GB I used last month was rollover from the month before that or something.
In total I have used 4.6 GB of mobile data so far this month, which is more than the 4 GB (2+2) I have available for this month and it’s still working.
Shockingly to some, the level of network development, especially wireless network, is not the same everywhere. Even population density varies greatly. I just checked our operators, the cheapest mobile plan comes at 1 GiB of data per month. Prices climb really fast after that, making 10-15 GiB (or more) too expensive for many, though you can get 5 GiB/mo subsidized for cheap if you have some sort of disability.
More datapoints in USD (Chile) from checking various companies:
150GB-200GB ~15 USD
400GB-450GB ~19-20 USD
Unlimited (without throttling) ~21-27 USD
This is the price after the new client ~20% discount expires (generally 6 months). The unlimited and higher tier usually include stuff like Amazon Prime Videos subscriptions, local IPTV or roaming gigs. All plans obviously include calls and texting.
Data point: I'm in the US on an old pre-paid plan that gets me 5GB per month at fast speed, dropping down to unlimited "2G" speed after that cap is hit, which I've done only twice in the past 12 years. $30 per month, and I always "bring my own device" (ie, I only buy unlocked phones, not through the carrier). I haven't shopped around for a while.
You should shop around! Some of the MVNOs are offering unlimited fast data at a similar price these days, and something similar to what you have now for cheaper.
I second this! I switched to mint recently. They are offering unlimited data including hotspot for $15/mo for up to a year if you prepay. I think then it goes to their standard rate which is $30/mo for unlimited, or $15/mo for 5gb.
I'm in WA - I pay $20/mo for 15GB on Mint Mobile. I used to do $15/mo for 5GB but kept sometimes bumping into it (tethering and stuff) so I just bit the bullet and upgraded.
That's kind of my point, ISPs use that max speed in their advertising when it isn't really relevant, especially if it hits your cap in a minute or two.
Years ago, I picked cell carrier because of this. When I ran out, it switched to O(200kbps), which is fine for email, basic web search, etc.
It was actually a bit ironic that, at the time, you could burn through the whole high-speed quota in seconds or minutes, if you went to the wrong web page. Most carriers would stop or bill you an arm-and-a-leg after.
5G data roaming is hilarious for this. Verizon offered 500MB of high speed data roaming per day in Canada before throttling down to ~128kbps. I ran one single speedtest in the middle of Ottawa on Rogers 5G, didn't even finish the speedtest (hitting an error at the end that it failed), and got the text message going "You've run out of high speed data today. Do you want to buy another 500MB for $5?"
At least it's 2GB/day now. And my 5G roaming is off...
As a residential customer Starlink gave me the unlimited slow speed with a free mini for $60/year, as a tease to promote the full speed at $300/year. But it does everything I need it to, so I'm not incentivized to upgrade. I can listen to YouTube audio, make voip calls, download map tiles or talk with a chatbot without limitations. It's a large quality of life improvement for me because in my rural area there is no cellular connection during most of my driving.
Have they quantified the slow speed? Because when I had Viasat the slow speed so so unbelievably slow it had a hard time loading a regular SPA page in 2-3 minutes.
Nice that instead of completely cutting you off at the cap they put it in super slow 500 kbits. That is actually usable and used to be the fastest speed you could get at home.
My first company was an ISP, and our selling point was that we had higher bandwith out of Norway than any competitors in our price range.... A whopping 512kps.
If I remember right we could get 64kb/s or 128kb/s if you bundled them, that was in Germany. But also, we didn't have that, we only had a 56kb/s modem and I remember really wanting ISDN when I was a kid :)
The first modem that I owned was 1200 baud. The first one that I used was 110 and it was exciting when it was upgraded to 300. It took ~20 years from when I first got online until my home internet reached 512kbps.
I bought a cheap 1200 and then once I had use for it I saved up for a USR 14.4 with a shiny extruded aluminum case. At one point I was sharing that with two roommates using SLIP and surplussed Cisco coaxial NICs.
Ok, I’m not normally one to be the pedantic bits/bytes guy, but if you’re gonna go and make a bit/byte “clarification” you need to get the annotation correct or you'll just confuse everyone.
It’s 500kb (small b for bits) and 62.5kB(capital/big B for bytes).
People always use bits for connectivity. 62.5kB/sec -- maybe really 55-60kB/sec downloaded. Or 18 seconds to get a megabyte.
This is simultaneously fast (on my 14400 bps modem that I spent the most time "waiting for downloading", I was used to 12-13 minutes per megabyte vs. 18 seconds here) and slow (the google homepage is >1MB, so until you have resources cached you're waiting tens of seconds).
It would be nice if everything were just a touch more efficient.
I end up transferring 940kB (with a lot of blocking cranked up). Typing "hello" in the search bar takes it up to 1MB. Then the first page of search results is another 1.3MB.
Now, I assume all of this would start working before it's all transferred. But we're still talking about tens of seconds of transfer at 500kbit/sec.
(And Google at least acts like they care about bandwidth a little. So many 15megabyte pages out there...)
Unfortunately, the 56kbps internet was a lot more usable. I've been on 256kbps cellular connections (T-Mobile free international roaming) and it works, but it's pretty bad. Everything takes way more data these days, and nobody thinks about slow connections when writing software so there are a ton of overly aggressive timeouts and bad UI that assume operations won't take more than few seconds.
No, not nice. Previously, if we exceeded the 50Gb cap, there was the option to continue on at high-speed for $1/Gb. And that's the same price per Gb as the base plan of 50Gb/month for $50. Now, it's either upgrade to unlimited, or enjoy Netflix at 500Kbps. I want the old plan back.
It's unlikely that we will exceed 100Gb/month in the camper. But if we do, it's either slow speeds, or pay $165/month for unlimited roam every single month we use it, versus paying a little extra for the few times we go over. In the end, it'll probably work out okay for us, but I liked the previous option of being able to get high-speed data at a reasonable price should we go over the limit.
If I calculate correctly then 500 kbps is actually enough for Netflix in standard quality. If one wants to binge watch 4K (7 GB per hour) then the unlimited plan makes more sense anyway.
I had a “hit” post on bsky [0] (90 likes, big numbers for me) asking whether people would want an unlimited mobile plan throttled at 256kbps for $2/month. Seems like yes?
There’s lots to say about how useable it is (I often get throttled when traveling and it’s really not that bad + it helps curb any desire to scroll videos!)
But mainly I want to ask - I looked into it for a minute and it seems like you couldn’t start an mvno because carriers wouldn’t let you cannibalize them?
You can get very cheap IoT plans but if you tried reselling IoT as esims for consumers, the carriers would kill it?
So yeah - Starlink to mobile is actually the only viable way that routes around this problem?
(((email in profile if you’re cuckoo enough like me and want to start a self service’d throttled mvno)))
There is something like this but twice the prive in Finland https://www.moi.fi/laitenetti . Can't make outgoing calls but there are pay as you internet call out services for that occaddional use case.
Sorry yes - I think it does. Starlink sats can already offer 5G service directly to mobile phones (from the sky!!)
And there are other comments here talking about this specifically - how unlimited bandwidth throttled plans are actually useful and would be great to have.
I assume they want to attract as many customers has possible while they have that monopoly - eventually they're going to need to compete with Amazon (Leo) and China (Qianfan, although I assume it'll be banned in the US). The cost of the phased-array terminals probably means there will be some stickiness.
That's the magic of the free market. Even with no direct rival yet, Starlink innovates like crazy because the threat of competition is always there and consumers demand excellence. Unlike state-granted monopolies, those parasitic structures stagnate and plunder the people.
They are interested in other markets where they don't have a monopoly though. Most of the time my cell phone has fast 5g internet, and my cell phone company is trying to sell me on their 5g internet (I have fibre so I don't see the point). For many potential starlink customers there is competition. If you on the ocean they are the only option. If you travel on land they can be the only option in places but you can probably live with no service in those few places.
I've never read Peter Thiel's books, but isn't that kinda a part of his playbook? Monopolies, but driving progress? "Competition is for losers"? I never fully understood it because it seems like then you're just competing with yourself.
I want the old plan back. If we went over the 50Gb/month, there was the option of continuing on at $1/Gb, which is the same price per Gb as the base plan. IOW, they didn't punish you for going over. Now if we go over, it's either put up with slow speed data, or upgrade to unlimited.
This is the equivalent of having the previous 50GB base plan and going over by $50 worth of data (an additional 50GB). If you were routinely going 50GB over the 50GB plan, I'd suggest that maybe a 50GB plan wasn't the right plan for you. Under the old plan, 100GB of data would have cost $100. Residential unlimited is $120, so for most users this would seem like an improvement.
That's the thing, we don't regularly go over 50Gb. Probably won't go over 100Gb, either. But if we do, it's either slow speeds, or pay $165/month for unlimited roam every single month we use it, versus paying a little extra for the few times we go over.
I spend a lot of time out of reception and starlink has been fantastic. So much so that I leave it on anytime I'm driving where I have cellular reception because it's just consistently good. I get ~100Mbps whether it's a forest service road, ATV trail, or on the highway through curvy mountain passes.
I'm on the 50GB plan so doubling for free is very nice, but it looks like they yanked the ability to optionally purchase additional high speed data for $1/GB. Maybe it's still there?
That’s great for me. I use it mainly for work (food trucks, not much data) but sometimes I’ll use it for personal stuff like weekend camping and hit the 50. Now I can just not worry about it ever.
This makes the $50/mo plan viable for wan failover. Still have the cgnat issue, but there's some documentation about requesting an ipv4 address from support. Has anyone succeeded with that?
That's not bad for the cheap plan. Even the slow mode is fast enough for video conferencing and doing basic remote work. They still have a separate unlimited plan for anyone who needs more.
I haven't done a video call on it but it does work for youtube. It's best to pause a video at the start but it buffers and plays just fine. Blocky but certainly watchable.
I work remotely and use a starlink mini for work and general internet usage since I road trip in the summer a lot. For work I'm not using doing RDP/remote desktop stuff since I have a company-issued laptop, but I have some experience using it to stream graphics-intensive games from my home PC with a nice GPU to my phone with a mobile controller attached to it.
I saw around 50-100ms of latency in ideal conditions with a clear view of the sky. There are distinct large latency spikes every 30ish minutes, which I think is due to the dish switching between different satellites.
I think the latency would be fine for working, but it will hardly be transparent. When using it to play games, I've mostly stuck to stuff that doesn't require fast responses or parry mechanics, etc.
Even without RDP-ing into another workstation, the latency spikes on video calls can be noticeable. Moment-to-moment video conferencing latency is totally fine, given that most of the major players in the space have pretty good latency compensation baked in.
A few details/complications:
- I'm usually within ~500 miles of my home, which is relevant because starlink satellites communicate with ground stations, and being closer to home will still have a meaningful impact on latency
- host PC is on a wired fiber connection
- I live relatively far north (~65N) and starlink's network isn't biased toward polar orbiting satellites, so my coverage probaby isn't representative of behavior further south. You can see a map of satellites and note the relatively poor arctic and subarctic region coverage here: https://satellitemap.space/
Awesome news. When we started RV traveling we wanted to do the 50G plan whenever we were out of cell-range but it turned out to be such a convenient service that 50G didn't last us more than 3 days so we switched to unlimited and haven't regretted it. Absolutely worth it because even the residential dish works flawlessly while driving and the kids can game and stream all at the same time from the pickup.
You can also start on the 100G plan and when you run out of data switch to unlimited right from the app. That'll bring down the first-month bill a tad and give you a chance to gauge the "slow speed" option.
I just checked my Starlink app and if I wanted to downgrade mine it says the change would be effective at the beginning of the next monthly billing period.
So looks like you can downgrade every month and upgrade any time. Sounds fair to me.
I’ve kept it on the backup service for 10 GB at $10 or whatever and it’s pretty cool. Used it off my balcony in SF when Google Fiber had a 1 hr outage, take it on road trips, and stuff like that. Totally worth it.
Regardless of the price and the data, I'd never subscribe to this service due to the owner.
I'm looking forward for alternatives from a more neutral vendor
I think they will have enough clients from other parts of the world to make it work. Large areas of my country can't really be covered with wired networks, it's too expensive to make it economically feasible without massive government subsidies, for which there's no money.
Starlink has already been used to connect very remote rural schools which previously only had dial-up connectivity (enough to send text email, but not much else).
And nobody here cares about American politics, we have enough of our own problems.
It's not really American politics when Elon decides to turn off your countries internet for personal gain. Having such critical infrastructure in the hands of someone unstable wouldn't be a choice I ever make for something so important.
You are probably referring to ukraine and you should know that this was entirely fake news. It was never disabled. It had never been enabled in Crimea in the first place, in accordance with US gov policy.
In 2022, Elon Musk denied a Ukrainian request to extend Starlink's coverage up to Russian-occupied Crimea during a counterattack on a Crimean port, from which Russia had been launching attacks against Ukrainian civilians; doing so would have violated US sanctions on Russia.[18] This event was widely reported in 2023, erroneously characterizing it as Musk "turning off" Starlink coverage in Crimea.
But you’re right of course that it might be in a sovereign country’s interest to build out their wired infrastructure instead of relying on external actors.
The vast majority of the international community, including the United Nations, the United States, and the European Union, recognizes Crimea as a sovereign part of Ukraine. :)
USAID was ironically a significant customer for Starlink. People are probably already familiar with the 5,000 Ukraine terminal scandal, but pretty much all their offices (in Colombia at least) had 1 or more terminals.
What does USAID have anything to do with this conversation? Well, DOGE was largely responsible for putting the final nail on that coffin. If you think he cares about remote rural schools having connectivity you better think again.
I actually prefer the economic system where providers don't have to care about the use cases and we're able to use the exchange of money for services to get things. I doubt Subaru cares about a yuppie couple going on a road trip to the redwoods. They just want my money. That's the sort of relationship I want with most vendors.
If Subaru started talking to me about how much they like that I take road trips with their cars I'd probably switch to a different vendor.
Fascism isn't just American. If you're going to be pedantic, at least be accurate.
My point: supporting an American fascist normalizes fascism everywhere
Boycott noted, meanwhile, I’ll be enjoying double the roaming data while you wait for that legendary ‘neutral’ competitor to beam down from the heavens.
I respect your principles, but at the same time, using Starlink for now does encourage other potential competitors to come forth, at which time you could switch.
As if Bezos is better. Elon has a much higher slope but he’s got a head start to catch up on, before they’re all hunting humans for sport on Ellison’s private island.
you're all over this thread seemingly trying to get someone to argue this point with you, or perhaps just to prove how nuts Elon is, as if people don't already know that, for example, from the time he did a nazi salute in public to a crowd
Bezos worst offense is meeting with Trump and donating to his campaign (and if you follow the leftist ideology, being a billionaire).
But based on personal experience with some very wealthy people, I truly believe they are just out of touch with the real world to understand what they are doing politically. Imagine if your days could be spent doing all the things you ever could wish, you would most likely not even bother reading stuff like reddit or HN, and certainly won't have time to look into any snippet of news in detail.
There are two Chinese alternatives being deployed right now. I believe one is called Guowang. As a red blooded American, I would rather go with Guowang over an American Nazi.
"That man" is the only person so far who's actually helped the Iranian people get their voices heard amidst government shutdown of the entire internet.
As I recently said about Scott Adams: "Good things can be done by Bad people." I think to assume that humans are these monolithic, logically consistent entities is to badly misunderstand humanity.
For example, Planned Parenthood--an organization I definitely believe in--was essentially created by a woman who was a eugenicist--something I definitely do not believe in.
Were I to be supporting PP when Sanger was still alive, I would not have been enriching her, or enabling other things that she believed in (at least not to any extent that would trouble me). Mostly because PP has always been a not-for-profit organization.
Being a Starlink customer, to me, has a straight line connection to enabling that man to do all the things he does.
> I think to assume that humans are these monolithic, logically consistent entities is to badly misunderstand humanity.
I don't think anyone is doing that though. But to decide whether to give someone's business money you do have to come to some sort of decision about their net good vs bad. It's logically consistent for the OP to be aware that Musk is aiding internet connectivity in Iran but still oppose giving him money.
> It's logically consistent for the OP to be aware that Musk is aiding internet connectivity in Iran but still oppose giving him money.
Why not flip this on its head? It's also logically consistent for people to be aware that Elon has done things they disagree with and still choose to buy his products.
people understandably love to understand complex things as simple logical puzzle pieces. they do it with words too. people have this tendency to act like words are formally-defined mathematical concepts, and then agonise over whether their experiences fit those concepts, then use those concepts as proof for their arguments. this is, of course, essentially simply a description of communicating with language, and for most words it's absolutely fine; the words have so little variance and breadth in definition that it doesn't matter. the issue arises when the words are not clearly defined, and it becomes even worse (and more common) when the words are emotionally loaded. people adore using emotionally, loaded, weakly defined terms to end an argument quickly. it's essentially sophistry. we're all absolutely awash with these terms right now due to the dominance of headlines, tweets, content titles and other short form stretches that demand dense, emotionally charged meaning in a small space. if you'd like some examples, take "fascism", "sexual harassment" and "eugenics".
don't say someone is "essentially a eugenicist". it's such a vaguely defined term that this borders on useless. if you believe something like this, justify it with: "she supported x policy I disagree with" or "she believed in the reduction of y trait in the populace" or whatever it is that triggered you to take on this belief in the first place
By this logic, Persians also hate him because he played a big factor in destroying USAID, an organization that has helped Iranians in humanitarian aid and disaster relief. Persian-language broadcasting by Voice of America and Radio Farda has been destroyed by Musk.
> By this logic, Persians also hate him because he played a big factor in destroying USAID, an organization that has helped Iranians in humanitarian aid and disaster relief.
Is this a joke? Persians never received such aids. If USAID sent any money to Iran, it went straight to the islamic regime's proxies in the region.
As the other poster said, low effort reply. You can start with the Bam earthquake and work your way to the loss of Radio Farda. You beloved Musk put an end to the Middle Eastern Broadcasting Network.
I do not want my technology tied to some person I consider of despicable character. Would I buy a cell phone, even at a good deal from Putin? No. Corporations have increasingly become political. Thanks, United vs FEC! So we see them taking a knee to gain commercial advantage. And as in this case harm to our democracy.
In my opinion, no discussion about Starlink is complete without considering whether the money you pay will be used to profit people or causes you do not want.
If you need this, then great. But I have other choices, just as I would not touch a tesla even if you gave it to me. I just am not that desperate.
I’m always amazed how much people attribute to citizens united, a ruling that overturned portions of a law that was only on the books for 7 years at the time.
My concern is that man, not the many people who work in the corporations who make the computing devices that I use. It's not exactly that those corporations have an unblemished record, but compared to what that guy did during his brief utterly ruinous stint with DOGE and in his election support of that other guy, there isn't a computing device company that doesn't look like St Francis of Assissi.
Yes and the seeds have already been planted by the current US administration taking various financial stakes in public companies as a condition of corporate welfare.
Huge difference between taking an equity stake in a failing company and nationalizing a successful company. Either way, those seeds were planted well before this admin, though this admin can be seen to have watered/tended them.
Those were just repaying the loans, having a stake in a company is completely different. It's not hard to push that further and in more creative ways too.
I don't see this as a good analogy, because the financial crisis bailout appeared to save the companies from shuttering, which is not what happened under the current admin.
Unrelated to the conversation, but the post title was something like "Starlink roam 50GB is now 100GB and unlimited slow speed after that", then a minute later it's now "Roam 50GB is now Roam 100GB".
Was this change made by a mod or OP, and why would someone making that change? I do think the original title was more descriptive, and the new title was completely out of context, or it's imply that everyone is using Starlink and know what's Roam 50GB is.
I believe there is a rule where the HN title should mirror the article’s title
I'm actually a huge fan of "unlimited slow speeds" as a falloff, instead of a cliff.
Aside from the fact it allows you to work with Starlink to buy more fast speed, it also allows core stuff to continue to function (e.g. basic notifications, non-streaming web traffic, etc).
> I'm actually a huge fan of "unlimited slow speeds" as a falloff, instead of a cliff.
When on cellular, I like to call that "HN-only mode." It is one of the few web properties that is entirely usable at 2G speeds.
I would kill for a web renaissance to return to this format of webpages, as least as an option. Not only loading improves, but also navigation and accessibility.
Indeed. That's why, when they finally kill old.reddit, I may legitimately stop using it entirely. They've already banned most of the good apps, forcing the pretty terrible official one.
Recently the old reddit szopped working for me even after going to account settings and opting out of new design again (it was already marked as being opt out) across all my devices. Even after manually navigating to old.reddit.com, clicking any link would take me to new again. I had to install special extensions to reroute to old reddit everywhere.
Same thing happened to me, this fixed it: https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/1odehgj/is_old_reddit...
> but also navigation and accessibility
Counterpoint, HN is notoriously hard to use on mobile (still better than some, but it's clearly designed for desktop, and not super responsive).
But agreed, that's independent of the slim nature of the webpage (which is still possible with a good mobile UX).
CBC News has a lite version of their news site that they tend to promote around times of natural disaster.
(1) https://www.cbc.ca/lite/news
CNN: https://lite.cnn.com/
NPR has one too: https://text.npr.org
I've been listening to 32kbit radio streams while on a 64k falloff. It used to be an important feature for me, the 64k up and down. Sounds like nothing, but is usable.
My mobile data plan is like this. It’s funny because when I’m “out of data” my provider sends an SMS suggesting I upgrade to more gigabytes, but then it still continues to work. And yes I checked my bills to make sure that they are not charging me for any usage excess of what’s included in the plan. It’s not even particularly slow. I can still browse the web, send and receive WhatsApp messages, images and videos, watch videos on TikTok etc.
My current plan is 2GB with rollover. Last month I used 2.5GB, and somehow this month has 2GB included + 2GB rollover = 4 GB available which by itself is also weird. Maybe most of the 2.5 GB I used last month was rollover from the month before that or something.
In total I have used 4.6 GB of mobile data so far this month, which is more than the 4 GB (2+2) I have available for this month and it’s still working.
There are still telcos offering 2GB plans. Wow. I’m on the cheapest plan and it comes with 400GB.
Shockingly to some, the level of network development, especially wireless network, is not the same everywhere. Even population density varies greatly. I just checked our operators, the cheapest mobile plan comes at 1 GiB of data per month. Prices climb really fast after that, making 10-15 GiB (or more) too expensive for many, though you can get 5 GiB/mo subsidized for cheap if you have some sort of disability.
Where are you and how much do you pay?
Cheapest plan here in Romania is 75 GB for 2 euro/month, then the speed is limited to 1 Mbps.
More datapoints in USD (Chile) from checking various companies:
150GB-200GB ~15 USD
400GB-450GB ~19-20 USD
Unlimited (without throttling) ~21-27 USD
This is the price after the new client ~20% discount expires (generally 6 months). The unlimited and higher tier usually include stuff like Amazon Prime Videos subscriptions, local IPTV or roaming gigs. All plans obviously include calls and texting.
Data point: I'm in the US on an old pre-paid plan that gets me 5GB per month at fast speed, dropping down to unlimited "2G" speed after that cap is hit, which I've done only twice in the past 12 years. $30 per month, and I always "bring my own device" (ie, I only buy unlocked phones, not through the carrier). I haven't shopped around for a while.
You should shop around! Some of the MVNOs are offering unlimited fast data at a similar price these days, and something similar to what you have now for cheaper.
I second this! I switched to mint recently. They are offering unlimited data including hotspot for $15/mo for up to a year if you prepay. I think then it goes to their standard rate which is $30/mo for unlimited, or $15/mo for 5gb.
Not sponsored or anything, just a happy customer.
I'm in WA - I pay $20/mo for 15GB on Mint Mobile. I used to do $15/mo for 5GB but kept sometimes bumping into it (tethering and stuff) so I just bit the bullet and upgraded.
I always think by law any ISP that advertises speed and a has a cap must express the cap in terms of the advertised speed.
So telcos can advertise "Up to 200Mbps" for their package.
But then if they have a 2GB cap, they also need to say, "Caps at 80 seconds of usage".
Because that's what you're paying for at that speed, 80 seconds of usage per month.
Sure, you're not always (or indeed never) doing 200Mbps, but then you're not getting the speed you paid for.
i don't think that makes sense, most connections you make never reach 200Mbps because they don't need to
That's kind of my point, ISPs use that max speed in their advertising when it isn't really relevant, especially if it hits your cap in a minute or two.
I imagine they are not from USA. But it's a surprisingly low plan, even considering that
Years ago, I picked cell carrier because of this. When I ran out, it switched to O(200kbps), which is fine for email, basic web search, etc.
It was actually a bit ironic that, at the time, you could burn through the whole high-speed quota in seconds or minutes, if you went to the wrong web page. Most carriers would stop or bill you an arm-and-a-leg after.
5G data roaming is hilarious for this. Verizon offered 500MB of high speed data roaming per day in Canada before throttling down to ~128kbps. I ran one single speedtest in the middle of Ottawa on Rogers 5G, didn't even finish the speedtest (hitting an error at the end that it failed), and got the text message going "You've run out of high speed data today. Do you want to buy another 500MB for $5?"
At least it's 2GB/day now. And my 5G roaming is off...
As a residential customer Starlink gave me the unlimited slow speed with a free mini for $60/year, as a tease to promote the full speed at $300/year. But it does everything I need it to, so I'm not incentivized to upgrade. I can listen to YouTube audio, make voip calls, download map tiles or talk with a chatbot without limitations. It's a large quality of life improvement for me because in my rural area there is no cellular connection during most of my driving.
Have they quantified the slow speed? Because when I had Viasat the slow speed so so unbelievably slow it had a hard time loading a regular SPA page in 2-3 minutes.
Nice that instead of completely cutting you off at the cap they put it in super slow 500 kbits. That is actually usable and used to be the fastest speed you could get at home.
My first company was an ISP, and our selling point was that we had higher bandwith out of Norway than any competitors in our price range.... A whopping 512kps.
Mmmmm ISDN copper…
If I remember right we could get 64kb/s or 128kb/s if you bundled them, that was in Germany. But also, we didn't have that, we only had a 56kb/s modem and I remember really wanting ISDN when I was a kid :)
ISDN (IDSL) was max 144 kbit/s. Two 64 kbit/s channels and one 16 kbit/s control channel all bundled together.
Or four bonded twin-64kbit channels with a multiplexer. Ahhh, high school…
The first modem that I owned was 1200 baud. The first one that I used was 110 and it was exciting when it was upgraded to 300. It took ~20 years from when I first got online until my home internet reached 512kbps.
I bought a cheap 1200 and then once I had use for it I saved up for a USR 14.4 with a shiny extruded aluminum case. At one point I was sharing that with two roommates using SLIP and surplussed Cisco coaxial NICs.
Still with pretty low latency (25-35ms) as well (similar to the Standby (aka pause) state you can put the account into for $5/mo)
That's faster than my cell phone in the areas where I desperately need Starlink....500kb > 0
Be aware that it is bits, so 62.5kb. But I agree, the internet is still usable with that.
> Be aware that it is bits, so 62.5kb
Ok, I’m not normally one to be the pedantic bits/bytes guy, but if you’re gonna go and make a bit/byte “clarification” you need to get the annotation correct or you'll just confuse everyone.
It’s 500kb (small b for bits) and 62.5kB(capital/big B for bytes).
Shouldn’t it actually be KB or even KiB?
If we're playing actually, then it's a speed not a quota, so whatever the correct value it should be suffixed with "per second".
K is for Kelvin, so probably not. kB or KiB, depending on intent.
People always use bits for connectivity. 62.5kB/sec -- maybe really 55-60kB/sec downloaded. Or 18 seconds to get a megabyte.
This is simultaneously fast (on my 14400 bps modem that I spent the most time "waiting for downloading", I was used to 12-13 minutes per megabyte vs. 18 seconds here) and slow (the google homepage is >1MB, so until you have resources cached you're waiting tens of seconds).
It would be nice if everything were just a touch more efficient.
Is Google homepage consisting of a text input field and like ten buttons really over a megabyte? Damn.
I end up transferring 940kB (with a lot of blocking cranked up). Typing "hello" in the search bar takes it up to 1MB. Then the first page of search results is another 1.3MB.
Now, I assume all of this would start working before it's all transferred. But we're still talking about tens of seconds of transfer at 500kbit/sec.
(And Google at least acts like they care about bandwidth a little. So many 15megabyte pages out there...)
> the internet is still usable with that.
We lived for years on 56kbps, granted the Internet was different back then, but we'd still "use" it, download stuff, etc.
Unfortunately, the 56kbps internet was a lot more usable. I've been on 256kbps cellular connections (T-Mobile free international roaming) and it works, but it's pretty bad. Everything takes way more data these days, and nobody thinks about slow connections when writing software so there are a ton of overly aggressive timeouts and bad UI that assume operations won't take more than few seconds.
I've never heard bandwidth being expressed in bytes. But if we're being pedantic then I'd like to throw my hat in and call it 62.5kB.
Or even better, 62.5KiB (for kibibyte)
> Or even better, 62.5KiB (for kibibyte)
Well, we can’t know if Starlink’s marketing team used 2^10 or 10^3, and since it’d inflate their numbers I guess the latter.
Good enough to play Quake 3 Arena.
You might just be able to stream 240p youtube without stuttering with that.
No, not nice. Previously, if we exceeded the 50Gb cap, there was the option to continue on at high-speed for $1/Gb. And that's the same price per Gb as the base plan of 50Gb/month for $50. Now, it's either upgrade to unlimited, or enjoy Netflix at 500Kbps. I want the old plan back.
Now the cap is 100G. Seems like an odd complaint. Did you often exceed 100Gb?
It's unlikely that we will exceed 100Gb/month in the camper. But if we do, it's either slow speeds, or pay $165/month for unlimited roam every single month we use it, versus paying a little extra for the few times we go over. In the end, it'll probably work out okay for us, but I liked the previous option of being able to get high-speed data at a reasonable price should we go over the limit.
If I calculate correctly then 500 kbps is actually enough for Netflix in standard quality. If one wants to binge watch 4K (7 GB per hour) then the unlimited plan makes more sense anyway.
I had a “hit” post on bsky [0] (90 likes, big numbers for me) asking whether people would want an unlimited mobile plan throttled at 256kbps for $2/month. Seems like yes?
There’s lots to say about how useable it is (I often get throttled when traveling and it’s really not that bad + it helps curb any desire to scroll videos!)
But mainly I want to ask - I looked into it for a minute and it seems like you couldn’t start an mvno because carriers wouldn’t let you cannibalize them?
You can get very cheap IoT plans but if you tried reselling IoT as esims for consumers, the carriers would kill it?
So yeah - Starlink to mobile is actually the only viable way that routes around this problem?
(((email in profile if you’re cuckoo enough like me and want to start a self service’d throttled mvno)))
[0] https://bsky.app/profile/greg.technology/post/3mbmwsytnyc23
There is something like this but twice the prive in Finland https://www.moi.fi/laitenetti . Can't make outgoing calls but there are pay as you internet call out services for that occaddional use case.
This doesn't seem to have anything to do with the current advertisement being discussed.
Sorry yes - I think it does. Starlink sats can already offer 5G service directly to mobile phones (from the sky!!)
And there are other comments here talking about this specifically - how unlimited bandwidth throttled plans are actually useful and would be great to have.
Not just you, that might be a overall record for bsky?
Really interesting that Starlink continues to improve the service when they have an absolute monopoly on fast, portable satellite internet.
I assume they want to attract as many customers has possible while they have that monopoly - eventually they're going to need to compete with Amazon (Leo) and China (Qianfan, although I assume it'll be banned in the US). The cost of the phased-array terminals probably means there will be some stickiness.
Also as has been noted, in some markets they do compete on price: https://restofworld.org/2025/starlink-cheaper-internet-afric...
That's the magic of the free market. Even with no direct rival yet, Starlink innovates like crazy because the threat of competition is always there and consumers demand excellence. Unlike state-granted monopolies, those parasitic structures stagnate and plunder the people.
Is this why Google Search has been getting better and better every year?
It was, until Matt Cutts left.
"Enshittification" would suggest otherwise.
I would guess that for many of their customers, they are still competing with non-satellite internet.
They are interested in other markets where they don't have a monopoly though. Most of the time my cell phone has fast 5g internet, and my cell phone company is trying to sell me on their 5g internet (I have fibre so I don't see the point). For many potential starlink customers there is competition. If you on the ocean they are the only option. If you travel on land they can be the only option in places but you can probably live with no service in those few places.
Absolutely monopoly? You mean other than Kuiper, right?
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/what-i...
How many customers does Kuiper have at present?
that entire page is in future tense
Some lessons were learned from iRobot.
I've never read Peter Thiel's books, but isn't that kinda a part of his playbook? Monopolies, but driving progress? "Competition is for losers"? I never fully understood it because it seems like then you're just competing with yourself.
Makes sense. Make your service good enough with your rocket+satellite synergy that competitors would need to spend $500B to be competitive.
I want the old plan back. If we went over the 50Gb/month, there was the option of continuing on at $1/Gb, which is the same price per Gb as the base plan. IOW, they didn't punish you for going over. Now if we go over, it's either put up with slow speed data, or upgrade to unlimited.
This is the equivalent of having the previous 50GB base plan and going over by $50 worth of data (an additional 50GB). If you were routinely going 50GB over the 50GB plan, I'd suggest that maybe a 50GB plan wasn't the right plan for you. Under the old plan, 100GB of data would have cost $100. Residential unlimited is $120, so for most users this would seem like an improvement.
That's the thing, we don't regularly go over 50Gb. Probably won't go over 100Gb, either. But if we do, it's either slow speeds, or pay $165/month for unlimited roam every single month we use it, versus paying a little extra for the few times we go over.
I spend a lot of time out of reception and starlink has been fantastic. So much so that I leave it on anytime I'm driving where I have cellular reception because it's just consistently good. I get ~100Mbps whether it's a forest service road, ATV trail, or on the highway through curvy mountain passes.
I'm on the 50GB plan so doubling for free is very nice, but it looks like they yanked the ability to optionally purchase additional high speed data for $1/GB. Maybe it's still there?
Finally I can use Codex/OpenCode even out in the woods. No work-life balance; just vibing everywhere I go.
Haha vibe coding is pretty addictive. Maybe vibe code an app that tells you how to improve work life balance in the woods ;)
Youtubing how to deal with a snakebite might come in more handy.
That’s great for me. I use it mainly for work (food trucks, not much data) but sometimes I’ll use it for personal stuff like weekend camping and hit the 50. Now I can just not worry about it ever.
At least it's not like my mobile service, which when I run out of data also disables the payment provider for their web portal to buy more data.
This makes the $50/mo plan viable for wan failover. Still have the cgnat issue, but there's some documentation about requesting an ipv4 address from support. Has anyone succeeded with that?
That's not bad for the cheap plan. Even the slow mode is fast enough for video conferencing and doing basic remote work. They still have a separate unlimited plan for anyone who needs more.
They explicitly say video streaming will be "limited" aka it won't work like you want it to
Zoom works in 500kbps environments in my experience.
You won't be in crispy 720p or 1080p, but you can still talk to other people.
I haven't done a video call on it but it does work for youtube. It's best to pause a video at the start but it buffers and plays just fine. Blocky but certainly watchable.
If the data speed is sufficient but they’re intentionally throttling video you could maybe get around it a VPN.
I just wish they would bring back their experimental $40 plan (and make it available in my area).
I know this is probably niche, but it would be nice to be able to buy, say, 50GB and have a year to use.
Has anyone used starlink for remoting into a work desktop? If so was the latency bearable?
I work remotely and use a starlink mini for work and general internet usage since I road trip in the summer a lot. For work I'm not using doing RDP/remote desktop stuff since I have a company-issued laptop, but I have some experience using it to stream graphics-intensive games from my home PC with a nice GPU to my phone with a mobile controller attached to it.
I saw around 50-100ms of latency in ideal conditions with a clear view of the sky. There are distinct large latency spikes every 30ish minutes, which I think is due to the dish switching between different satellites.
I think the latency would be fine for working, but it will hardly be transparent. When using it to play games, I've mostly stuck to stuff that doesn't require fast responses or parry mechanics, etc.
Even without RDP-ing into another workstation, the latency spikes on video calls can be noticeable. Moment-to-moment video conferencing latency is totally fine, given that most of the major players in the space have pretty good latency compensation baked in.
A few details/complications:
- I'm usually within ~500 miles of my home, which is relevant because starlink satellites communicate with ground stations, and being closer to home will still have a meaningful impact on latency
- host PC is on a wired fiber connection
- I live relatively far north (~65N) and starlink's network isn't biased toward polar orbiting satellites, so my coverage probaby isn't representative of behavior further south. You can see a map of satellites and note the relatively poor arctic and subarctic region coverage here: https://satellitemap.space/
Musk has excellent products but I wouldn't give him a dime. I have no problem with conservative politics, but his flavour is well beyond that.
Awesome news. When we started RV traveling we wanted to do the 50G plan whenever we were out of cell-range but it turned out to be such a convenient service that 50G didn't last us more than 3 days so we switched to unlimited and haven't regretted it. Absolutely worth it because even the residential dish works flawlessly while driving and the kids can game and stream all at the same time from the pickup.
I put some more details on my blog if you're interested in power specs or DNS options on the router, etc. https://bitcreed.us/bitblog/starlink-on-the-road
You can also start on the 100G plan and when you run out of data switch to unlimited right from the app. That'll bring down the first-month bill a tad and give you a chance to gauge the "slow speed" option.
Can one downgrade back from unlimited too 100?
I just checked my Starlink app and if I wanted to downgrade mine it says the change would be effective at the beginning of the next monthly billing period.
So looks like you can downgrade every month and upgrade any time. Sounds fair to me.
I’ve kept it on the backup service for 10 GB at $10 or whatever and it’s pretty cool. Used it off my balcony in SF when Google Fiber had a 1 hr outage, take it on road trips, and stuff like that. Totally worth it.
Regardless of the price and the data, I'd never subscribe to this service due to the owner. I'm looking forward for alternatives from a more neutral vendor
I think they will have enough clients from other parts of the world to make it work. Large areas of my country can't really be covered with wired networks, it's too expensive to make it economically feasible without massive government subsidies, for which there's no money.
Starlink has already been used to connect very remote rural schools which previously only had dial-up connectivity (enough to send text email, but not much else).
And nobody here cares about American politics, we have enough of our own problems.
It's not really American politics when Elon decides to turn off your countries internet for personal gain. Having such critical infrastructure in the hands of someone unstable wouldn't be a choice I ever make for something so important.
You are probably referring to ukraine and you should know that this was entirely fake news. It was never disabled. It had never been enabled in Crimea in the first place, in accordance with US gov policy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russian-Ukrain...
But you’re right of course that it might be in a sovereign country’s interest to build out their wired infrastructure instead of relying on external actors.The vast majority of the international community, including the United Nations, the United States, and the European Union, recognizes Crimea as a sovereign part of Ukraine. :)
Sanctions were in place because russia controlled crimea regardless of international recognition, so what's your point
Nice to see what the colonizer imperialist state actors that love Zionism and unequal exchange side with.
USAID was ironically a significant customer for Starlink. People are probably already familiar with the 5,000 Ukraine terminal scandal, but pretty much all their offices (in Colombia at least) had 1 or more terminals. What does USAID have anything to do with this conversation? Well, DOGE was largely responsible for putting the final nail on that coffin. If you think he cares about remote rural schools having connectivity you better think again.
I actually prefer the economic system where providers don't have to care about the use cases and we're able to use the exchange of money for services to get things. I doubt Subaru cares about a yuppie couple going on a road trip to the redwoods. They just want my money. That's the sort of relationship I want with most vendors.
If Subaru started talking to me about how much they like that I take road trips with their cars I'd probably switch to a different vendor.
It’s not “American politics” when a guy does a Nazi salute on live TV. So thanks for showing your political inclination.
Not to be pedantic. But facism is politics.
Fascism isn't just American. If you're going to be pedantic, at least be accurate. My point: supporting an American fascist normalizes fascism everywhere
Would you rather buy from Jeff Bezos or a Chinese state-owned enterprise? Those are your likely options within the next 5-10 years.
In 20026 that’s a question I would have to answer with «I’ll have to get back to you on that».
In fact, sometimes I wish I had chosen a profession where I didn’t need an internet connection at all.
Does Jeff Bezos believe we need white solidarity to survive because non-white people are a threat to white men?
Citation needed
Look at Elon's X replies
Here you go: https://www.columnblog.com/p/the-adl-ignores-yet-another-elo...
This is opinion, not citation. Here's what he said:
> White people are a rapidly diminishing minority of global population
Which unless you have any extra context, according to me does not entail:
> we need white solidarity to survive because non-white people are a threat to white men
Elon Musk is a deluded addict who thinks he's doing the right thing, Jeff Bezos is in it for himself only and knows it.
Nobody has been forced to switch to a space based internet solution.
You don't need to buy from any of those people.
Boycott noted, meanwhile, I’ll be enjoying double the roaming data while you wait for that legendary ‘neutral’ competitor to beam down from the heavens.
Hey, at least they won't be getting data from and enriching an avowed racist, so they got that going for them.
Enjoy your part in creating misery for people who just happen to not be white.
I respect your principles, but at the same time, using Starlink for now does encourage other potential competitors to come forth, at which time you could switch.
something something, sounds like a bluesky post.
I’m 100% on the same boat. The only competitor I can see is Amazon Leo. Having options is great but they both suck.
As if Bezos is better. Elon has a much higher slope but he’s got a head start to catch up on, before they’re all hunting humans for sport on Ellison’s private island.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2009171282030653877
I disagree that Bezos & Elon are comparably bad.
you're all over this thread seemingly trying to get someone to argue this point with you, or perhaps just to prove how nuts Elon is, as if people don't already know that, for example, from the time he did a nazi salute in public to a crowd
Bezos worst offense is meeting with Trump and donating to his campaign (and if you follow the leftist ideology, being a billionaire).
But based on personal experience with some very wealthy people, I truly believe they are just out of touch with the real world to understand what they are doing politically. Imagine if your days could be spent doing all the things you ever could wish, you would most likely not even bother reading stuff like reddit or HN, and certainly won't have time to look into any snippet of news in detail.
Musk on the other hand, is mentally ill.
thank you for not bidding up the price
See also the "Fuck You Elon" exhibit at this past Burning Man, powered by starlink.
There are two Chinese alternatives being deployed right now. I believe one is called Guowang. As a red blooded American, I would rather go with Guowang over an American Nazi.
They could make it 1000GB for US$10/month and I still wouldn't give any money to a company associated with that man.
I know everyone has strong opinions about Elon, but for $10/mo I would absolutely get this. At $50/mo, I don't have enough of a need to get it.
"That man" is the only person so far who's actually helped the Iranian people get their voices heard amidst government shutdown of the entire internet.
Like it or not, Persians love him.
This is a very low effort reply. Does doing one good thing erase all the bad things a person has done? If that's the argument you're making, make it.
don't call someone else's comment low effort and follow it with little more than a strawman-ish summary of what you'd like the comment to have said
As I recently said about Scott Adams: "Good things can be done by Bad people." I think to assume that humans are these monolithic, logically consistent entities is to badly misunderstand humanity.
For example, Planned Parenthood--an organization I definitely believe in--was essentially created by a woman who was a eugenicist--something I definitely do not believe in.
Were I to be supporting PP when Sanger was still alive, I would not have been enriching her, or enabling other things that she believed in (at least not to any extent that would trouble me). Mostly because PP has always been a not-for-profit organization.
Being a Starlink customer, to me, has a straight line connection to enabling that man to do all the things he does.
> I think to assume that humans are these monolithic, logically consistent entities is to badly misunderstand humanity.
I don't think anyone is doing that though. But to decide whether to give someone's business money you do have to come to some sort of decision about their net good vs bad. It's logically consistent for the OP to be aware that Musk is aiding internet connectivity in Iran but still oppose giving him money.
> It's logically consistent for the OP to be aware that Musk is aiding internet connectivity in Iran but still oppose giving him money.
Why not flip this on its head? It's also logically consistent for people to be aware that Elon has done things they disagree with and still choose to buy his products.
people understandably love to understand complex things as simple logical puzzle pieces. they do it with words too. people have this tendency to act like words are formally-defined mathematical concepts, and then agonise over whether their experiences fit those concepts, then use those concepts as proof for their arguments. this is, of course, essentially simply a description of communicating with language, and for most words it's absolutely fine; the words have so little variance and breadth in definition that it doesn't matter. the issue arises when the words are not clearly defined, and it becomes even worse (and more common) when the words are emotionally loaded. people adore using emotionally, loaded, weakly defined terms to end an argument quickly. it's essentially sophistry. we're all absolutely awash with these terms right now due to the dominance of headlines, tweets, content titles and other short form stretches that demand dense, emotionally charged meaning in a small space. if you'd like some examples, take "fascism", "sexual harassment" and "eugenics".
don't say someone is "essentially a eugenicist". it's such a vaguely defined term that this borders on useless. if you believe something like this, justify it with: "she supported x policy I disagree with" or "she believed in the reduction of y trait in the populace" or whatever it is that triggered you to take on this belief in the first place
By this logic, Persians also hate him because he played a big factor in destroying USAID, an organization that has helped Iranians in humanitarian aid and disaster relief. Persian-language broadcasting by Voice of America and Radio Farda has been destroyed by Musk.
> By this logic, Persians also hate him because he played a big factor in destroying USAID, an organization that has helped Iranians in humanitarian aid and disaster relief.
Is this a joke? Persians never received such aids. If USAID sent any money to Iran, it went straight to the islamic regime's proxies in the region.
As the other poster said, low effort reply. You can start with the Bam earthquake and work your way to the loss of Radio Farda. You beloved Musk put an end to the Middle Eastern Broadcasting Network.
And Escobar financed hospitals.
The same guy could help some people and kick others in the dirt at the same time.
The same Persians in a western country would be called a threat to western culture by parties Musk endorses
That's such an unique viewpoint that no one has expressed on the internet.
Thank you for bringing value to this comments section.
I'm surprised that you signed up for an account just to say something this empty
Just FYI you accidentally replied to wtfHN26 instead of PaulDavisThe1st
I was hoping to bring my karma down a bit.
Et tu, wtfHN26.
The more I learn about Musk's past, his family, his ties to the paypal mafia, the more I want absolutely nothing to do with him.
Him or any of his companies will never see a penny from me.
You are good.
Noted, your principles are clearly priceless. The rest of us will just keep enjoying the world’s best mobile internet while you hold the line.
Thank you!
This resonates for me.
I do not want my technology tied to some person I consider of despicable character. Would I buy a cell phone, even at a good deal from Putin? No. Corporations have increasingly become political. Thanks, United vs FEC! So we see them taking a knee to gain commercial advantage. And as in this case harm to our democracy.
In my opinion, no discussion about Starlink is complete without considering whether the money you pay will be used to profit people or causes you do not want.
If you need this, then great. But I have other choices, just as I would not touch a tesla even if you gave it to me. I just am not that desperate.
I’m always amazed how much people attribute to citizens united, a ruling that overturned portions of a law that was only on the books for 7 years at the time.
A large part of it is mistaking the effect of the central holding in Buckley v. Valeo (1976) as stemming from Citizens United v. FEC (2010).
A law that existed to forestall or stop a trend of increasing regulatory capture via bribery, er, "campaign contributions"
Apple is incorporated in California, USA. Does this mean that you're not buying iPhones either because you don't like Trump?
Wait until you hear about what the early pioneers of the electronic device you're using right now used to think... And do.
You gonna throw your computer away?
My concern is that man, not the many people who work in the corporations who make the computing devices that I use. It's not exactly that those corporations have an unblemished record, but compared to what that guy did during his brief utterly ruinous stint with DOGE and in his election support of that other guy, there isn't a computing device company that doesn't look like St Francis of Assissi.
Don't worry, this is the type of project that can easily get nationalized with zero pushback if anyone with authority wanted to.
That might have pretty negative long time consequences. Nationalize a few companies and soon the corporates might relocate.
yes but only by a US authority.
Yes and the seeds have already been planted by the current US administration taking various financial stakes in public companies as a condition of corporate welfare.
Huge difference between taking an equity stake in a failing company and nationalizing a successful company. Either way, those seeds were planted well before this admin, though this admin can be seen to have watered/tended them.
The current administration didn’t start that, see the bailouts of the 07-08 financial crisis.
Those were just repaying the loans, having a stake in a company is completely different. It's not hard to push that further and in more creative ways too.
That’s completely incorrect, they got significant equity in AIG, Citibank, and several other companies.
I don't see this as a good analogy, because the financial crisis bailout appeared to save the companies from shuttering, which is not what happened under the current admin.
Some of it is. Intel was in big trouble.
Some of the investments were more national security related and a lot of it was done through the DoD which has a history of this too.
It’s unusual but not entirely unprecedented.
The willingness to keep backing his companies, despite his political trajectory, is honestly hard to understand.
Don't like what the guy says [0], but this is incredible technology and I'm impressed by how early we are getting it.
[0]: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2009171282030653877