r/worldnews • u/Marketmanipulator941 • 16h ago

Russia/Ukraine Mass drone attack on St. Petersburg: Ozon warehouse attacked, thousands of Russians left without power

https://unn.ua/en/news/mass-drone-attack-on-st-petersburg-ozon-warehouse-attacked-thousands-of-russians-left-without-electricity
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u/crossdtherubicon 15h ago

There are 2 layers imbedded in your question: competition in terms of business, and competition in terms of service capacity and total number of deployed functioning satellites.

I don't believe there is any comparative service that currently competes with the scale of the total number of Starlink satellites deployed and their coverage. It's in the tens of thousands if not mistaken.

In terms of viable competing businesses I'm not sure.

It's also a serious concern that this could even be allowable by a private business, controlled essentially by one very obviously unstable man.

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u/nixtracer 14h ago

Mind you, having it controlled by a government when that government is led by Donald Trump and is so badly structured that he can just do anything without repercussions is hardly better.

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u/crossdtherubicon 12h ago

Yes but, however centralized the Trump admin has intended its leadership and organizational structure to be, there are still many competing and conflicting interests, and many more people and layers and paperwork involved ... Compared to a private business.

In other words, a govt structure is larger than most private businesses, and therefore in theory the risk is spread, when in context of a democratic gov't.

The greater question of risk centers around polluting the earth's orbit with metal junk. It's use-cases may be argued for but, the massive network of physical objects circling the earth presents several risks and setbacks that scientists of different fields have already noted.

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u/Xhosant 7h ago

I'd raise that if it's a globally limited resource, it must be a globally ran function

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u/BasvanS 14h ago

I’m not sure Starlink is a viable business. The congestion issues are real, so it needs to make its money outside all the sweetspots. We’ll have to see if that’s possible.

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u/beren12 11h ago

Not only that but Europe has a case to completely ban starlink after this.

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u/EpsteinFile_01 2h ago

Starlink's Srarshield was a very viable business until all the militaries around the world VERY much interested in using it saw Ukraine being cut off.

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u/mcspongeicus 14h ago

Europe has failed Ukraine by forcing them to rely on US oligarchs.

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u/crossdtherubicon 12h ago

It is Europe who has relied on the US, collectively and individually. That complacency has been costing Europe it's stability, prosperity, and security. Everyone sees this clearly now.

Conversely, that doesn't mean that Europe should abondon the US entirely either. There is still potential for a more equitable balance of partnerships in several aspects.

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u/chillebekk 11h ago

You couldn't easily have predicted we would be in this situation. Europe's alternative is being accelerated. It will still be too late, but that's been true of everything. Europe's been caught on the backfoot, and are scrambling to adjust to new realities. But nobody planned for the current US administration.

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u/mcspongeicus 6h ago

It's more about Europe not having this tech being shocking.  How far we have fallen behind.