People keep saying this, how do you guarantee that Starlink doesn't turn to crap after it is nationalized? No one who calls for nationalization ever has an answer to this.

Frankly, there is the argument that all of this tech and optimization was there for others to develop but no one cared that much and its only now after you and others realize how good it is that you want to just go in and take it "because its so vital to national security".

Furthermore why can't someone just copy them? Drop a ton of money on poaching their engineers and just copy whatever the government needs?

Clearly leadership at SpaceX including Musk are a driving force behind this being so good...just look at the trash all the other companies are peddling. The magic might just go away if its nationalized and if it does then you probably can't just go "oh sorry bro heres your company back pls give us more magic".

▲ panick21_ a day ago | parent | next [-]

> how do you guarantee that Starlink doesn't turn to crap after it is nationalized

How do you guarantee that Starlink doesn't turn to crap if you don't nationalize it?

Its a silly question. Governments have successfully operated various telecommunication systems for a long time.

Lots of modern telecommunications and sat tech comes out of the government.

But this will depend on each countries experience. I think one can make a solid argument that the denationalization of telco systems in the 90s was a mistake.

Same goes for the breakup of AT&T. The better option would have been to just nationalize the baby bells. And make AT&T focus on long distance competition and the technology. Maybe also nationalize Bell Labs and keep it operating financed from a the income of the Baby Bells.

Because what actually happened is that these Baby Bells simply got massive monopolies, made gigantic profits and were then able to do lots of other infrastructure plays and then mostly glob back together.

> take it "because its so vital to national security".

I think for that you don't need to take it. If you take (forced sale) it, it would be because you want to provide universal access subsidized without lining Musk pockets even more. But you would need a real long term vision for this to be worth it.

> Furthermore why can't someone just copy them? Drop a ton of money on poaching their engineers and just copy whatever the government needs?

Because the system is already built and working, why spend the capital on building the same thing again.

For me some kind of open access law would make more then nationalization. But the suggestion to nationalize isn't crazy.

▲ db48x a day ago | parent [-]

> …without lining Musk pockets even more.

I just can’t fathom the logic here. You say that you don’t want to line Musk’s pockets, but seizing SpaceX/Starlink would cost a trillion dollars or more and all of that money would go to Elon Musk! The government would have to issue a trillion dollars of bonds, agreeing to pay interest on them for decades, and then hand all of the money over to Elon Musk who then doesn’t have to pay that interest.

You’re deluding yourself to think that it’s even feasible. And it’s also a bad idea just on general principles.

I agree that the breakup of AT&T was a mistake though.

▲ roughly a day ago | parent | next [-]

You’re conflating “buying” with “seizing.”

▲ teravor a day ago | parent | next [-]

    > You’re conflating “buying” with “seizing.”

in what fantasy land are you people living?

if a government just seizes a multi trillion corporation, that government has just signed its economic death warrant. no one will ever trust it again and everyone will start examining jumping ship options.

it will actually lose more economic value the very next day than the value of the corporation it seized. probably in just the bond market alone.

and this even ignores the court challenges that will follow and likely undo the action but not the damage.

	▲	MentalM 17 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		[dead]
	▲	vlyan a day ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		>in what fantasy land are you people living? in the echochambers like reddit and bluesky. I call it the toaster fucker problem. Man wakes up in 1980, tells his friends “I want to fuck a toaster” Friends quite rightly berate and laugh at him, guy deals with it, maybe gets some therapy and goes on a bit better adjusted. Guy in 2021 tells his friends that he wants to fuck a toaster, gets laughed at, immediately jumps on facebook and finds “Toaster Fucker Support group” where he reads that he’s actually oppressed and he needs to cut out everyone around him and should only listen to his fellow toaster fuckers.
	▲	panick21_ 15 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> in what fantasy land are you people living? Please do not put me into the same group, I never mentioned seizing.

▲ rlt a day ago | parent | prev [-]

You’re forgetting about the Fifth Amendment.

▲ panick21_ 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The argument is that fundamental infrastructure has long run returns and should be controlled by the government. Not sure why this is hard to understand.

And the government should have that assets so it can use it how it wants, subsidise it, deploy it for military reasons, restrict it and soo n.

Yes, Musk would make a lot of money in a one time payment, but he would lose control over the asset and not continue to profit of new subsidies and other ways the government might want to use it.

And it wouldn't cost 'a trillion'.

> agreeing to pay interest on them for decades

Starlink returns are higher then the interest on bonds.

So you are essentially returning future profits to the government.

The government can raise the capital and buy the assets, just like google or amazon could. The logic is the exact same.

> Elon Musk who then doesn’t have to pay that interest.

Not sure what you are talking about.

Musk would have to pay income and capital gains tax, so government would get it pretty cheap.

> You’re deluding yourself to think that it’s even feasible.

Government have nationalised much bigger infrastructure before. Even the US government let alone many others.

Seems like you have a case of US recency bias.

	▲	db48x 13 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Don’t move the goalposts. You said that you would avoid lining Elon Musk’s pockets, which is impossible. None of the rest of that is right either. For one thing, the price of a stock accounts for future earnings. Buyouts only work if you have a plan that will let you use the company’s assets to earn a higher rate of return than the company’s current owners. You don’t have such a plan, and the government could never execute it even if one were found. The trillions that you would spend buying SpaceX represent the next several decades of profits that SpaceX could make, all delivered as a lump sum. Elon would just take that money and found SpaceY, but probably not in the US, and then spend the next two decades out–competing SpaceX because he has better capitalization. Because you gave him a trillion dollars in one lump sum.

▲ fedpost 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The problem is it's already crap. The DoD and all the civil operators are currently freaking the fuck out because Elon in his infinite wisdom is prematurely ending production of the proven and human rated F9 in favor of the unproven starship.

In addition to this he's literally exercising his own foreign policy goals over those of the US. I normally wouldn't have an issue with this if he was actually standing up for something reasonable instead of nazi shit but the company has already been built entirely off of government dollars. If Lockheed Martin came along and said they wouldn't build F-35s for someone Congress offered them to everyone would absolutely lose their minds but it's Elon so apparently this is fine.

	▲	SyzygyRhythm 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I urge you to think through the consequences of what you are complaining about. Do you think that Elon should have unilateral, unchecked ability to export military weapons communications systems? Even to Ukraine? I expect the answer to that is no, for you and most people. But all SpaceX has done is enforce the terms of Starlink licensing. Terms that were there from the beginning that disallowed them from using it for weapons, and ones that are required by ITAR. Ukrainians are of course very clever and are fighting for their country, and found workarounds to the limits that SpaceX put in. SpaceX then found how to block those. I don't begrudge the Ukrainians this, but at the same time SpaceX cannot allow their civilian network to be used for military purposes. It would be blatantly illegal for SpaceX not to block these uses when possible. If you think Elon should not be allowed to make these decisions, then you should support precisely what they've done: unconditionally disallow any non-civilian use of Starlink. The military can use Starshield, which is under control of the military and for which the commander in chief decides the rules.