Why does SPACEX do the things it does?

Rastafarian

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Not sure why this is the route they are taking unless that is the only way to monetize space x. Mobile networks work great for virtually everyone. Why create a 4th? They will have to figure out direct to device and terrestrial. The first seems possible. The second seems like a lift and one that would eat away at margins. No one is going to want a phone that doesn’t work indoors.
 

fatpiggy

Heisman
Aug 18, 2002
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Not sure why this is the route they are taking unless that is the only way to monetize space x. Mobile networks work great for virtually everyone. Why create a 4th? They will have to figure out direct to device and terrestrial. The first seems possible. The second seems like a lift and one that would eat away at margins. No one is going to want a phone that doesn’t work indoors.
Why? Because they can do it at a better price. We will see I suppose.
 

Rastafarian

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Why? Because they can do it at a better price. We will see I suppose.
What is a monthly cell bill - $40? How much cheaper can it get?

space is cool and all, but I just don’t see the use cases. I wonder if they will also build their own phone because it will need specialized hardware just for starlink.
 

fatpiggy

Heisman
Aug 18, 2002
27,622
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What is a monthly cell bill - $40? How much cheaper can it get?

space is cool and all, but I just don’t see the use cases. I wonder if they will also build their own phone because it will need specialized hardware just for starlink.
My monrhly cell bill is like $400. Probably $500 Im scared to look. 4 kids will do that to you.


I don’t think they build their own phone. Elon repeatedly said he doesn’t want to.


This spectrum allows them to service indoors, it will directly compete with AT&T
 

Rastafarian

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So they have to build out a network of towers like all other networks? I remember reading in advance of the ipo how poorly positioned starlink was to compete as a mobile carrier. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me when the market is saturated and not growing, and is viewed as a commodity.

But I guess I can see why he would do it. Starlink is the majority of revenue and 2/3 of space x launches are for starlink. He has to find a way to create more demand for launches.
 

fatpiggy

Heisman
Aug 18, 2002
27,622
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So they have to build out a network of towers like all other networks? I remember reading in advance of the ipo how poorly positioned starlink was to compete as a mobile carrier. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me when the market is saturated and not growing, and is viewed as a commodity.

But I guess I can see why he would do it. Starlink is the majority of revenue and 2/3 of space x launches are for starlink. He has to find a way to create more demand for launches.

If I had to guess, only in densely populated cities or for areas like tunnels. I don't know though. Maybe it's the carriage pushing the horse .... maybe Starlink is capable of delivering a lot of bandwidth and he is looking to create demand (your point above).
 
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firegiver

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Sep 10, 2007
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What are peoples thoughts on local llm rage? Open models being installed by nvidia at uber etc? Yall saying AI credit costs going down, while ignoring the price hikes of subscriptions is weird. We pay more today for these closed models that we did before.... at least in my anecdotal experience.

People are making wild claims that private ai companies maybe undone by Nvidia and open models. Maybe there's new lower cost deals happening. Idk
 

Rastafarian

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What are peoples thoughts on local llm rage? Open models being installed by nvidia at uber etc? Yall saying AI credit costs going down, while ignoring the price hikes of subscriptions is weird. We pay more today for these closed models that we did before.... at least in my anecdotal experience.

People are making wild claims that private ai companies maybe undone by Nvidia and open models. Maybe there's new lower cost deals happening. Idk

the intelligence in open weight models is good enough for most enterprise use cases. Doesn’t mean there isn’t massive value that will accrue to the frontier labs. Jevon’s paradox is applicable here. The only losers will be those not in the flow of tokens.
 
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firegiver

Heisman
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the intelligence in open weight models is good enough for most enterprise use cases. Doesn’t mean there isn’t massive value that will accrue to the frontier labs. Jevon’s paradox is applicable here. The only losers will be those not in the flow of tokens.
Sure, but you dont think that evolving paradigm puts a ton of stress on companies with balance sheets like openAI and anthropic? They were counting on hiking up rates.... now thr market is forcing them down. How are they gonna pay everyone back?
 
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Rastafarian

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Aug 21, 2025
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Sure, but you dont think that evolving paradigm puts a ton of stress on companies with balance sheets like openAI and anthropic? They were counting on hiking up rates.... now thr market is forcing them down. How are they gonna pay everyone back?
When you are growing that fast at that kind of scale and still have less than 5% penetration in consumer and enterprise, you will be more than capable of paying everyone back. The only risk is if the open ai board doesn’t put a leash on Sam and his wasteful spending on all his pet projects.
 
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