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If you're privileged enough to work a six-figure tech job while engaging in a homesteader larp in a "cabin in the woods", you can probably afford the fee. So ca
by naturalmovement 2mo ago
If you're privileged enough to work a six-figure tech job while engaging in a homesteader larp in a "cabin in the woods", you can probably afford the fee. So can "off-grid" YouTuber grifters.
It's like everyone feels entitled to something they didn't know existed a few years ago.
- Cyberdogs7 2mo agoSo we should let companies do what ever anti-consumer practices they want, because you don't like the group they are doing it to? Should a car company be allowed to charge you an extra fee every time you have a passenger?
- naturalmovement 2mo agoIf you need a specialized amphibious vehicle to get to your shack in the woods, it's not anti-consumer if it costs you more than a Mitsubishi Mirage.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2mo agoThe world is more than rich tech bros living in the woods. Normal income people also wanted to use this service without being bankrupted. Rural homes do have roads that can be reached on a rusty pickup.
- ben_w 2mo agoA few days ago people were telling me the Starlink was brilliant because it gave small African villages with no mains electricity an internet connection to share. This kind of behaviour does rather dampen the value proposition for such people.
- naturalmovement 2mo agoDo you think tech bros who voluntarily choose to live in the woods should pay the same subsidized price as a rural African schoolhouse? Equity and all that.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2mo agoPeople feel entitled to the advertised rate structure. Was there anywhere in the promo material that you might get slapped with $1500 connection fees? If you are not big tech, that’s a lot of money. For the home in the middle of nowhere, $1500 could be more than you would pay in monthly rent. Plenty of rural people without access to good internet were hoping for Starlink to save them from garbage DSL connection options.
- naturalmovement 2mo agoBoo hoo.... these same people were previously faced with $40,000 connection fees for Comcast and Verizon to trench a cable 1/2 mile to their property so $1500 seems like a pittance. Look, friends of mine did this, they bought a country place so they can live the dream and write software in the sticks. Next thing you know they're drilling new wells and installing a generator to support the fantasy while the bills pile up. When you bring modern conveniences to rural life it costs money.
- wat10000 2mo agoI go to their home page, click "get started," and it asks me where I want service. If I put in a place with a congestion surcharge, then it shows me on the next page. In fact, you have to pay it up front to order service. Seems advertised to me. If you don't want to pay it, then you don't have to use their service.
- ButlerianJihad 2mo ago> congestion surcharge I can't wait until our urban cable-modem and DSL providers pick up those "congestion surcharge" ideas! (FCC tariffs prevent this, right?)
- wat10000 2mo agoThey've generally chosen to go with bandwidth caps and throttling instead. Different ways of managing the shared resource. I'm not really sure what people want here. Capacity is limited. They're adding more as fast as they can, to the point that they've launched more satellites than everyone else has combined in history. But it takes time. Until capacity meets demand, there are going to be limitations, one way or another. At least they are actively adding capacity, unlike some ISPs I've had with old infrastructure that couldn't handle modern demands and just left it that way. I'm sure people would be complaining just the same if they had no surcharge but throttled everybody, or imposed strict data limits, or stopped accepting new customers entirely in congested areas.