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Comment by sib | Hacker News Reader

We bought a Starlink Mini for the use case of frequent travel to far-off (international) places with limited mobile service, where we occasionally need to get online for high-priority work tasks or meetings. For $55 / month for 100GB and flexible usage in many countries, it was extremely useful.

Then, recently, SpaceX changed the terms such that the 100GB and 300GB subscriptions are no longer usable internationally (technically outside of North America). You have to pay for the unlimited service tier and even then can only use it for 30 days before returning to the home region.

A huge decrease in utility and a tripling in cost. A new device with a built-in battery is definitely not going to make up for that.

(Still a great service when it works, am posting this from remote western Mongolia.)

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Starlink isn't allowed in South Africa because South Africa has laws that require companies operating in South Africa have least at least 30% of the company owned by locals. Namibia a country if ever there was one that needed Starlink it is Namibia but Starlink is banned in Namibia. I am not making excuses for the price changes but I imagine Starlink is getting all sorts of push back from incumbent ISPs across the world.

I thought Elon Musk was South African

He's actually a citizen of SA, the US and (I just learned) Canada :)

It's highly unlikely he has chosen to retain his South African citizenship.

Sometimes it's an immutable property. E.g. I'm a UK citizen whether I want to be or not.

https://www.gov.uk/renounce-british-nationality

Is there some reason to do this other than ideological protest?

For US citizens there is the global taxation rules. Is there something like that for UK citizens?

If taking another country's citizenship requires renouncing all others.

To the sibling comment: It's in case you wish to acquire citizenship in another country that does not recognise dual citizenship.

I.e. that [new] country will not allow you to become a citizen of it unless you renounce your original one.

What that might actually mean practically, or if you can un-renounce it later, I don't know. [Edit]: Turns out, according to that page, yes, you can do that with some kind of bureaucratic shuffle. Daft - but sometimes these things are.

You've had another reply which describes the process to renounce your British citizenship, I'm wondering if you just weren't aware of that, or is there something else backing up your assertion?

South African citizenship can be renounced. https://dirco.gov.za/berne/renunciation-of-south-african-cit...

As for why someone might do it, some do it to ensure they're not at any risk of extra-territorial application of South African laws, especially tax laws.

Why would he bother? It's not something that expires.

Until a recent Constitutional Court decision, it was an automatic loss of South African citizenship if you naturalised in another country without specifically requesting retention. After that ruling, the process is no longer automatic, but a number of people chose to renounce it regardless so as to avoid any potential impact of extra-territorial application of, for instance, tax law. [0]

Members of Parliament have asked South Africa's government whether Musk is still a South African citizen, but that information is protected by South Africa's privacy laws. So we won't ever know for certain unless he reveals it. [1]

[0] https://www.cliffedekkerhofmeyr.com/en/news/publications/202...

[1] https://pmg.org.za/committee-question/28275/

He is literally a SA citizen. You can easily look this up.

Provide a source, please.

The only official response on this has been to refuse to provide information either way based on South Africa's privacy laws. [0]

[0] https://pmg.org.za/committee-question/28275/

According to this, the law "mandates ICASA to regulate historically disadvantaged groups’ equity requirement at no less than 30%", rather than just saying "South Africans": https://www.parliament.gov.za/press-releases/media-statement...

(I would like to link to the actual law, but the URL ChatGPT gave me doesn't load and I don't know if that's because ChatGPT is wrong or the South African government's website is having problems).

It has to be a “historically disadvantaged group” which the legislation defines to be a variety of groups including women. It’s just more anti-white male racism from South Africa.

> South Africa has laws that require companies operating in South Africa have least at least 30% of the company owned by locals

Wow, that's crazy (in a good way). They have no Google either?

There is Google and all the other online media companies. Now sure how Google has handled it, perhaps setting up a subsidiary. I think one of the issues with Starlink is that it has physical hardware and will compete with mobile providers and ISPs. It is very complicated.

This is the answer. In order to operate in the country you have to set up a local company and that will have the share required by law.

In SA specifically they're not affected by the 30% rule as they sell digital services.

So then is it just that Starlink needed an operating subsidiary with some local ownership to handle the ground stations there? Seems less onerous than how the US handled TikTok or the Chinese 5G hardware stuff.

Countries are often sensitive about their communication infrastructure.

Yes, or to partner with an existing ISP.

Amazon Leo, for instance, is partnering with Herotel. [0]

[0] https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/amazon-leo/amazon-leo-south...

I think in practice this isn’t great. You get a bunch of little companies which represent foreign firms employing a few connected people. Maybe a few sales people that take orders. The net impact a few people get cushy jobs and the customers get more expensive and worse service.

As a consequence, South Africa has a flowering space industry and their own satellite internet network, deployed by their own space shuttles. Turns out that when you give the right incentives and protect your local businesses, they have no problem competing with predatory international firms.

You're being sarcastic, but South Africa does indeed have a thriving space industry for its size. Not only in terms of satellite components, but entire buses and satellites, which has included building satellites for Saudi Arabia.

However, the purpose of the BBBEE local ownership requirement for companies like Starlink is to protect and develop the local telecommunications sector, not the space sector.

https://www.wesgro.co.za/invest/sector-brochures/space-econo...

https://mybroadband.co.za/news/science/637482-billionaire-ho...

https://maxpolyakov.com/africa-in-space-part-1-south-africa-...

https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/south-africa...

https://spaceinafrica.com/2026/08/11/the-quiet-giant-of-glob...

https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/saudisat-3.htm

Wow that's cra- rolling brownout due to neglected and incapable utility companies

Many countries are trying to protect the jobs in their telecoms sector. I can imagine the revenue impact it'll have on the mobile network operatrs if a lot of their high value customers migrate to starlink.

Which could be 30% of the local partner or subsidiary, which is the approach taken by all other multinationals operating in the country or in other countries with local ownership requirements. Amazon for instance is partnering with one of the local ISPs for Amazon Leo.

While there is much to criticise in South Africa's implementation of racial redress laws, at least some part of the Starlink issues in SA are Musk's insistence on turning it into a crusade because of his broader ideological hatred of South Africa's government.

But that requires revenue sharing with a local subsidiary. The 30% HDG owner wants its cut.

Musk did offer to give 5000 schools free Internet. Cynical me thinks that the connected parties who tend to profit from the local ownership laws wouldn't benefit from the schools getting free Internet.

Even then I still think I'd rather see the money flow shared. The less funnels that go to a few people, the better for all of us.

Given Musk's tendency to overpromise and his weak adherence to certain past promises, why should that be the sole determinant? Especially if there are other concerns that remain unaddressed, including becoming overly-dependent on something that Musk appears to personally control.

For what it's worth I think telecommunications companies like Starlink should be given the option of making an equivalent equity investment rather than giving away an ownership stake, as is allowed in other sectors. And the overall policy is being reviewed with an eye to possibly making that an option which I see as a good thing: https://www.bee.co.za/post/ict-sector-bee-code-under-the-mic...

But all telecommunications companies should be able to operate on a level policy playing field. Musk right now is trying to use his privileged access to the White House to apply intense economic and political pressure on South Africa in order to receive special treatment for Starlink compared to its competitors. I'm certainly not a fan of that.

> For what it's worth I think telecommunications companies like Starlink should be given the option of making an equivalent equity investment rather than giving away an ownership stake

I think this is what Musk wants but isn't getting.

The offer for free internet to the schools is an interesting one. Given the large size of South Africa fibre is never going to reach most places outside of major urban centres anytime soon. This poses an interesting considering for the rural child who stands to benefit from Starlink. My parents use Starlink and I don't care for Musk's politics. It is the best and only solution where they are located. Perhaps these rural kids in SA should be given Starlink too. No one is ever going to solve the politics in totality. There will always be a challenge.

Why shouldn't he hate a government that's openly discriminating against him due to the color of his skin?

It's not. It's applying a standard affirmative action and local ownership policy to all telecoms companies.

As I said, there's much to be debated about the South African government's implementation of racial redress policies, but that the social and economic impacts of Apartheid still linger so sharply strongly implies that some level of redress policy remains necessary.

Affirmative action is, by definition, discrimination.

As an American, this sucks. You can open and run a 100% foreign owned business in the USA. That’s great for consumers and the economy in general. China is the worst, I can’t sell a video game in China without a local partner or buy a Chinese company. They can sell any game here and buy any game company here. And they do. I know there are lots of exceptions to this, maybe the worst is cars.

People could complain, well you can do that because you’re the biggest market. We need to protect local businesses. But the USA can go protectionist too. We’re all going to end up paying the protectionist tax.

> As an American, this sucks. You can open and run a 100% foreign owned business in the USA. China is the worst

Look at TikTok, DJI etc. It's not that simple. Also the reason US companies are in China is because it is worth it for them, trust me.

You also seem to be forgetting the tech/software dominance the US has around the world.

But in principle I agree with you, this should of course include the US closing its bases outside of its own territory. Why? Because if you want to have bases on someone's territory so that you can protect your economic interests you have to offer something of value in return. If not, why should you have the right to stay?

How many US military bases are in South Africa or China?

China is the only real growth market for American companies anyomre, so the relationship with China is very, very valuable to American businesses.

As for SA, they're trying to kickstart their own industry as a relatively poor country, same as India. Guess what? The US was extremely protectionist when it was building its own industry.

Most of what you wrote is blatantly false, though in your case if you're a US citizen then it can be chalked up to unintentional ignorance (since you did not need to go through the regulatory hurdles a non-US citizen would) . You can open and run a 100% foreign owned business in China just like in the US, and you can buy a Chinese company just as easily as you can buy a US company (going through the same regulatory hurdles and mechanisms in both countries). Both countries heavily scrutinize foreign ownership of sensitive industries, but are more lax for nonsensitive ones.

The example about cars is particularly egregious, since China allows U.S. factory ownership and car sales (for example, the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory is 100% U.S. owned), but the US doesn't for China.

The only true statement you made was that you can't sell video games in China without a local publisher. Even so, I doubt the U.S. allowing foreign citizens to sell games without a local partner is the sole basis for your "We need to protect local businesses with protectionism!" argument.

> You can open and run a 100% foreign owned business in China just like in the US

not quite. it depends on the industry. there are certain industries -- telecom being one of them -- where a JV is required

also, your company is not a regular company, but in a special category and subject to other restrictions that a Chinese-owned or JV isn't subject to

it's easiest in manufacturing especially if you have a company that is basically manufacturing for export

it used to be very difficult, but it's gotten easier in recent years; but it's very different than having a business in the US that is foreign owned

I think especially after Ukraine I definitely wouldn’t want a large amount of critical infrastructure relying on a network you have no control over. The argument might be that it’s better to have something rather than nothing.

SpaceX is pushing for a global satellite-based mobile broadband and telecommunications network. People are bullish on it but I think they miss the point that you raise: SpaceX will still need to comply with local laws in every country they offer the service. Sure they won't need to build physical towers but legal compliance remains.

That means even if you're roaming SpaceX will need to comply. As such, the service won't really be useful unless they comply with the legal regimes in likely 100+ countries. That's a big issue. Not unsolvable but still big.

As others have said, subsidiary companies. Perfectly normal, and SpaceX is certainly big enough to do so... if they're willing. I mean, the whole "move fast and break things" approach may lead to viewing regulations (especially other countries' regulations) as things you just ignore until they prove that you can't.

And, let's say that I'm a wanna-be SpaceX user in Namibia. I drive over the border to, say, Botswana. I buy a receiver. I drive back into Namibia. I may be illegal, but is SpaceX breaking the law? Even if they are, what can Namibia do to SpaceX about it? They can't do much, precisely because SpaceX has no business presence in Namibia.

That makes sense that it can't be sold in those countries. But who's to enforce a ban from a US customer using roaming service in a nation where it’s banned?

Mostly SpaceX, presumably because they don't want to burn that bridge unnecessarily. They might think that the situation will change in the future and they'd rather be in good standing to take advantage of that.

Note that they do offer service in some countries that have banned them, namely Iran.

Yes, we've travelled to both South Africa and Angola earlier this year and run into this situation.

I'm thinking of getting one myself. Even with those annoyances, internet is so unreliable and sh1tty in some of the countries I visit regularly - or in many areas in my home country - that the value proposition is still very compelling.

It's also not a massive up-front risk at current prices (~£180 for the mini). Considering the no-minimum period policy, it's worth a shot even if it's just for redundancy that you can roam with.

Now, I wonder if adding a battery to it isn't actually a drawback when you want to travel with it, as I suppose you won't be able to put it in checked-in luggage, and it's large enough that it will take over your cabin backpack.

>> Considering the no-minimum period policy, it's worth a shot even if it's just for redundancy that you can roam with.

Yeah - that was exactly what we wanted, for a reasonable ($55/month) price. But with the recent changes, it's now $175 for the unlimited plan in order to have international roaming for this "backup roaming" use case...

If you identity verify your unlimited account the 30 days can optionally extend to 60 through an add-on.

Altai mountains ? Been wanting to visit western Mongolia

Good thing the climate isn’t changing anymore so we can all just fly around to these far of places and not care and have Internet at the same time which uses more carbon to blast rockets often into space and have data centers to collect all your data.

It's always amusing to me to see which hills people will die on for climate change and which ones they refuse to acknowledge as being a part of the existential crisis.

Yes! Highly recommend - it's been very interesting and educational.

Global internet forced local. Nice! :D

I love the concept and technology, marvellous, but all ruined by the erratic and arrogantly offensive behaviour of this overgrown narcotic child. Their mentality is repelling and the approaches are unreliable enough for feeling nauseous by the thought of giving them money. It is good I have choice (i.e. not in some connectivity black spot with urgency to connect).

I don't get what's the point of geographically restricting these things. What's the benefit?

Purely market segmentation

And probably charging frequent travelers more because they can afford to pay.

I wondered if it’s to get around variable rational pricing - stop you buying it in X country that has cheaper pricing.

I would imagine local internet and wifi companies don't like it, and try to ban it. This would be a compromise.

Dynamic pricing based on what your next best alternative is.

Like in the US they need permission to operate. If china builds a competitor i doubt they would be allowed to operate in the US

Yeah, Starlink got A LOT less useful for global with the recent change. You can re-register in the country you’re in, but there are limits to how often you can do that, so still not great for driving around a continent like South America or Africa.

I remember being mad as hell a decade ago that I lived down the street from AT&T global headquarters but couldn't get fiber to the home. Starlink advertised gigabit Internet from anywhere and were supposed to offer service in Dallas within a year, so I eagerly paid some small deposit and put myself on a waiting list.

It ended up being four years, 300 megs, and a base station you could connect to your own router was over $5000. I noped out on that shit and never looked back.

To be fair and balanced, I still think it's terrific tech and will someday feel like a miracle to many, maybe decades from now, but I'm not exactly volunteering myself to be one of those broken eggs in a great tasting omelette to be delivered in 2047. And I'm put off by using a dead and definitely non-consenting Arthur Clarke to shill for them.

Sounds like you got musked

In fairness to Musk (not a phrase I say often) it also sounds like just about every internet provider out there. As soon as you get used to your plan there’s a new fee or restriction out of nowhere.

Why does market standard practice “whattaboutism” need to defend the despicable? This is hacker news, is it not? Let’s celebrate the bold and call out the lies. Not pander to the mediocre.

Musk's ambition enables GGP to post on HN from Western Mongolia, but he is derided because his company used to offer an even better option once.

Enables it for 30 days. Such a massive cut in usability on top of tripling in price for existing users does deserve derision.

This is what happens when there is no competition. There is no better alternative, and if demand goes up...

Before starlink existed, there was also no competition.

So what, nobody is allowed to launch any product unless it also has a competitor?

I don't know how you got there but no that's not the implication.

Thread is complaining about starlink having no competition.

It is, but it's not complaining in the weird way you interpreted it.

What? I'm confused by your reply.

I meant that Starlink adjusting prices shouldn't be surprising, if anything it is still cheap (IOM).

I got a mini on sale at HD for ~200, paid 0/mo -> 5/mo now $10/mo to keep online as a backup. Amazing tech IMO and cheap.

Thread was complaining about starlink having no competition. That's like complaining AWS had no competition a couple years after it launched.

> Musk's ambition enables

It's so weird to me the attribution of collective efforts to a single individual.

> his company used to offer an even better option

Yes, it's a degradation in service not unlike a bait-and-switch.

I just don't understand how you can hold your mental model of the world.

>>It's so weird to me the attribution of collective efforts to a single individual

Yeah, totally never happened with Steve Jobs and Apple.

Yes, and that was weird too, to anyone not a blind fanboi.

I mean neither of them are physically assembling iPhones or Teslas, but I do think Apple and Tesla/Starlink/Whatever would be different companies without them.

> different companies

Not a very strong or interesting thesis.

Yeah, what is this person's point? That a cliche is common?

Yes! It's tedious in many cases.

>It's so weird to me the attribution of collective efforts to a single individual.

Why didn't you reply to the guy blaming Musk personally for the plan changes?

Sib will certainly switch to the first good alternative when it becomes available, any day now surely

If one appears, one of the reasons will be that people complained about the existing one, signalling the market.

This "just eat your gruel and be grateful" attitude on Hacker News is becoming very common now but remains surprising. This is the attitude of serfs, not hackers.

Man, kind of a shitty comment, sorry.

That’s the thing about kleptocracy, Musk has artificial barriers constructed by the government, making competition nearly, if not literally, impossible.

What barriers would those be? There are well-funded competitors in every domain he competes in. His products are just the most competitive. HN has totally jumped the shark on Musk.

Being allowed to circumvent SEC rules for one, which gives access to huge amounts of capital, which then feeds exclusive government contracts. HN is way more pro-Musk than the average human. He’s hated.

The enforcement of SEC rules over small issues (e.g., the 420 tweet) have not given him access to huge amounts of capital. He has access to huge amounts of capital because he has repeatedly produced giant profitable businesses that people want to invest in, including many very sophisticated investors in private offerings.

JUMPED. THE. SHARK.

Yes, that he’s not in prison like he should be for constantly and knowingly offering fraudulent projections has indeed granted him access to capital. Again, he would be in prison were the rules enforced.

I don’t know what you mean by “JUMPED. THE. SHARK.”. Maybe you’re accidentally replying on the wrong thread?

So it's not OK to compare things in relative terms, but we should only compare them in an absolute sense? Pretty lofty ideal. (The appeal to emotion is very inspiring though, not gonna lie.)

What does the competition even offer here?

This is HN, where anything less than the commenter's idea of perfect is a crime against humanity

Especially when it's Elon Musk.

I did not say it in defense of Musk, rather to damn terrestrial internet providers along with him.

"musked" isn't a thing, reply is spot on in my opinion.

I think it might be, Tesla, Cursor, Twitter/X have also been notably user hostile.

No, they haven’t? Relative to their competitors, all three have been excellent.

Twitter is not “excellent”, it’s a sewer. Cursor isn’t even really a thing anymore. Claude Code and Codex killed it. Tesla just discontinued their garbage can on wheels and promised (and charged for) fake “full self driving” for years.

All Reddit bullshit.

Cursor: $4 billion in annualized revenue. https://presenc.ai/research/cursor-usage-and-revenue-statist...

X: 550 million daily users. https://twtdata.com/twitter-statistics/

Tesla: "Fake" or not, 1.74 million active FSD subscriptions with record growth: https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/4862/tesla-fsd-hits-record...

I don’t know what “Reddit bullshit” is, I’ve never even used Reddit. $4B revenue (and dropping) is nothing today.

X is a sewer, quite a bit smaller than the other social networks too!

Yes, “full self driving” is fake. Compare any of the numbers you’re quoting with the fraudulent valuations behind Musk’s scam companies and you’ll see why the SEC should throw him in prison, were we living in a functioning society.

Subjective, Bluesky is also a sewer, reddit /r/all is also a sewer.

Objectively all of those things are sewers. Twitter is the worst though.

It's purely because of his politics. Everyone loved Teslas before he moved to the right.

> he moved to the right

If by "moved to the right" you mean "he fell off the far end and if he were a politician his politics would be considered radical extremism", sure.

I feel like this is a false narrative I hear a lot. “Everyone” didn’t love Teslas, it was a niche product and then Musk exposed himself as one of the worst people on earth, and the market shrank even more. It’s a strawman to claim Teslas were loved by “everyone” (implicitly or explicitly often stated as people with a left wing bent).

As I remember things, a lot of people turned on Musk (or were already against him) in 2018 when he called the diver who rescued children trapped in a cave in Thailand (and "stole" a moment of glory from Musk and his mini-sub) a "pedophile".

Long before he announced he intended to vote Republican in 2022.

Yeah, I think that’s when people went from having no opinion on Musk to actually disliking him and it’s been all downhill from there.

Nobody said "everyone" meant everyone ever. In all statements like that, there is an implied "everyone with feelings on Tesla"

Musk fanboys are hardly “everyone”.

I said nothing about Elon specifically.

Let's not forget stunts like the cave rescue sub that was incredibly unfit for purpose and him calling one of the actual heroes of that moment "pedo guy"

He's always been a piece of shit, it's just that the last several years he's been a far more obvious piece of shit.

He fired his PR team at Tesla[0] who were doing a sterling job of polishing a turd. Since then he has been more obviously a dope-addled con manchild.

[0] https://electrek.co/2020/10/06/tesla-dissolves-pr-department...

Hardly. Starlink uses monthly contracts and they change their terms all the time. Go talk to a sailor who has used it for a couple of years.

We could use a description Musk would not approve of and say the problem here is capitalism.

Except that SpaceX relies on government handouts and regulatory moats. Pretty much the opposite of capitalism, not that there aren’t myriad of problems with that too.

Gov't handouts and moats are provided to lots of companies. All over the world. Especially in the rocket & satellite biz, which are seen as top priorities for national prestige/security/infrastructure.

But somehow, those handouts and moats have produced exactly zero credible competitors for SpaceX and Starlink.

If you hate Magnus Carlsen, you can talk about how much time he gets to practice playing chess, and imply that is cheating and the secret of how he beats all his competition at chess championships.

Just don't expect anyone who knows much about chess to be convinced.

> Gov't handouts and moats are provided to lots of companies. All over the world. > But somehow, those handouts and moats have produced exactly zero credible competitors for SpaceX and Starlink.

Almost no companies in the world get the same level of gov subsidies that starlink/spacex gets. If you exclude other big gov contractors (no reason why you should do that, just to illustrate the point I guess) the number is basically 0. Also, there are several other companies that are direct competitors with Starlink but they haven't been as successful. I don't know if that's due to a funding issue or something else, but I doubt it's due to lack of technical ability. Not sure the Magnus comparison is too relevant here..

Where are these SpaceX subsidies?

I keep hearing about them but can't find the cash anywhere.

We could also say that capitalism was a solution problem solved by starlink.

Not just internet providers; nearly every corporation that exists or has ever existed. The rug pull is a well documented and practiced business strategy, and also the more fundamental driver behind things like enshittification and many of the other corporate-treatment crises we have been facing.

I have always thought we'd eventually regret allowing half the internet to flow through a private network owned and operated by the world's most powerful 12 year old boy.

Isn't it more like less than 1%?

Well yeah they are offering an incredible, totally unique service, and if they want to charge more for international usage, that makes sense. I’m also a frequent international user of Starlink. It’s still worth it at $300/month.

> am posting this from remote western Mongolia.

Short story at least, please. What's a day over there like for you?

This morning we woke up in our ger, ate breakfast with our wonderful host family (headed by a 73-year-old eagle hunter), then watched one of his sons and daughter-in-law milk the family's camels. After that, we took a 3-hour horse ride through the hills to see the patriarch search for foxes after which he could send his eagle. Unfortunately, no foxes today - they're hard to find and the snowy weather didn't help. In the afternoon, after lunch, a little relaxation and some work from the ger, now we're getting ready for a home-cooked local dinner at which we'll present the family with gifts for hosting us.

Hard to beat - just don't expect a lot of creature comforts!

Wow. Thanks!

It's probably not cheap to deploy 1000s of satellites in space that shoot lasers with high degree of accuracy while keep them running reliably.

I used Starlink for the first time the other week on a Narrowboat holiday in remote (at least by UK standards) South Wales. I was honestly pretty impressed.

We're considering buying a motorhome in the next couple of years and my experience with Starlink made me think it was a practical necessity going forward.

This kind of constant meddling in the pricing structure makes me want to not touch it with a barge pole though. Yes, satellites are expensive, but that's not an excuse for not coming up with a viable business plan and pricing structure that you can stick with over a reasonable term.

Quite a lot of people are using it domestically in the UK as well, after getting told it will take 3 years/£2000 to run fibre optic to their house.

£2000! Yikes, is that even legal? That could 20+ months of Internet service for an installation charge.

I mean picked from thin air, but if you're down some weird spur road and they have to put extra poles in to run the cable it's of that order of magnitude.

I'm thinking of getting it in the wilds of central London where I have an "Openreach Stop Sell order for traditional copper services" but no fiber or a date for getting that.

It's not as good as full fibre, but it's much better than copper.

I got fibre shortly after Community Fibre started covering my area (check yours at https://communityfibre.co.uk/ ) and no, it wasn't anything like that cost. I am generally happy with it.

It was like £50 for me, but a neighbour needs two extra telegraph poles installed before the cable can reach him, and he was quoted high hundreds or low thousands in pounds for the fibre installation.

So be honest about that up front.

Not get people to pay a lot of money for the hardware based on decent plans and quotas, and then jack up pricing and restrict features almost immediately. It's a bait and switch.

Typical telco behavior though. Cox cable, Verizon, AT&T, so on. They even sold “price lock guarantee” as a feature, often a time limited promotion.

You don't become the richest person in the world by treating your customers well.

What are you talking about? That’s very nearly the opposite of true. Customers pay for delivered value. They’re voluntary exchanges.

Customers don't pay for delivered value, they pay for what they assume the value to be after the purchase. A huge part of the global economy is focused on distorting these assumptions.

Look, you're not going to convince me by pointing at econ 101 models. There are tons of additional factors that shape customer decisions - for example, you could keep promising self-driving cars next year™ for a decade.

No, if companies consistently fail to deliver value, people stop buying their products. As much as you want to believe people are buying Teslas because they're being duped, the truth is they're selling so well because even absent true self driving, they're the best car for a very large number people for most use cases.

> No, if companies consistently fail to deliver value, people stop buying their products.

Why are we suddenly talking about "companies consistently fail[ing] to deliver value"? That is unrelated to my initial comment.

Or is your argument that a company not "fail[ing] to deliver value" is equivalent to them treating their customers well?

Maybe I misunderstand -- When you say, categorically, that "you don't become the richest person in the world by treating your customers well," what do you mean? I can think of many, many companies that I would attribute their success primarily to treating their companies well. And at least in my experience, that would include Tesla, Starlink, and xAI. Absent monopoly power, I'd say that's the rule, not the exception.

I'd like to try, but I fear that our value systems might be too fundamentally different for me to successfully bridge that gap. It'd be very helpful if I could first understand how you interpreted my initial statement, because otherwise we'll most likely talk past each other:

- In your eyes, what types of actions/situations are examples of "companies not treating their customers well"?

- Same as above, but for "companies treating their customers well"?

Customers always take the Faustian bargain.

Over the long term surely StarlinK capital costs scale fairly linearly with the user base. And the benefit to the user of space layers is marginal when they are already paying for a specific level of bandwidth.

I'm currently paying more in rural UK for a base ADSL (10Mbps down, 1Mbps up) than I would pay for the 100Mbps Starlink option. There's no sign of fibre arriving here, but if it did, it'd probably be even more expensive. It makes a lot of sense to switch to Starlink.

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