Even if they aren't financially viable, I think they're attractive because companies want to keep certain kinds of data/processing on everyone/everything someplace where there's a lower chance of government regulation (gdpr/etc).

If this is the case, I wouldn't be surprised to see them eventually support these kinds of regulations because it would enhance their moat (now earth orbit in addition to large capex for equipment and a sufficiently large user base).

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berkes 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In that case, international water is far easier. There already are server farms on old oil rigs.

But, as these things go, regulation isn't that much about where you put the computers, but about where you register your company, and where your customers are living.

	▲	omgwtfbyobbq 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's easier, but it's riskier too. Someone can come along a take your stuff a lot easier at sea than they can in orbit. And weather is always tricky, although launches aren't easy either. In terms of regulation, it depends on the specifics. Sometimes it depends on where the customer lives, but even if it does, when a platform has no business operations in a region and there aren't international treaties between the consumer country and where they're operating from to resolve that sort of thing, the most the regulating country can do is block them.

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jeltz 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

GDPR does not care about where your servers are located.

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omgwtfbyobbq 3 hours ago | parent [-]

It seems to be in certain cases. For example Meta is subject to GDPR because they have EU headquarters, and were subject to fines because they transferred EU data to US servers.

If they have headquarters outside the EU, and only use data they've already acquired/processed to make money off of EU consumers from outside the EU, GDPR shouldn't be an issue for them in the same way.

And GDPR makes it harder for their competitors to catch up because it's harder for those competitors to get data.

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Eezee 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Aren't they subject to GDPR because they do business in the EU with EU citizens? I don't see how that would change.

	▲	omgwtfbyobbq 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Probably, but not in the same way. I'm guessing they wouldn't have been fined for external data transfers if their servers were located outside the EU. It could be that the EU would block them if they wanted to host fb/etc... including ads, and didn't have a presence in the EU, but I'm not sure if that's the case.

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rightnutwingjob 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There are only three ways to deal with regulations you don’t like: political, legal, and force.

Where you put something is completely irrelevant.

	▲	omgwtfbyobbq 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's not accurate. You can build/do/etc things in some places and not in others because of differences in local law/regulation. Where you put something, like a data center, can be relevant. If Meta didn't have a business presence in the EU, and operated their data centers outside of the EU, they wouldn't have been subject to GDPR in the same way they were.

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4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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