Elon Musk Is Charging Starlink Customers Gigantic Bogus Fees Because Its Network Is Being Crushed by “High Demand”
2026-07-06 01:04 UTC
Replies (16)
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@reddig33@lemmy.world 2026-07-06 03:29
This is like those people who bought Meta glasses and then acted surprised when they got screwed. Did you really not expect something like this from Musk?
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@BarnWolf@lemmy.world 2026-07-06 03:39
And I read somewhere that he may be trying to buy t mobile to be able to meet that demand.
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@sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-07-06 03:52
So basically: His companies are hilariously insolvent, so he rolls them all together and does the biggest IPO of all time to raise money. But he still needs more money. So then he tries to do a corporate bond issuance… doesn’t go super duper well. So he still needs more money. Welp, ok then, jack up fees, whatever, not very original, but does at least kind of work. Any takers as to whether or not he’ll still need more money? If you guess correctly, you get a free Neuralink installed in your head you you can send OTA bluetooth firmware commands with your brain! Or well, maybe it works… maybes its the opposite of that. Whatever. … But you can recharge them with your solar roof tiles! And then get in your Tesla Roadster! And then take a Starship ICBM flight to Hong Kong or Moscow or Buenos Aires or Rome! And then take the hyperloop to Antarctica!
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@Flower@sh.itjust.works 2026-07-06 04:08
And that was supposed to be the backbone of the space based data center
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@wasabi_noir@lemmy.zip 2026-07-06 02:53
Over promise and under deliver, the musk way. Fucking clown ass Nazi piece of shit. I know there’s not a lot of viable alternatives, but if you’re using a Nazi service, I lack sympathy when the Nazi raises your prices.
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@fizzle@quokk.au 2026-07-06 05:07
I remember when starlink first became available here and had better speed than you could get with terrestrial services. 5 minutes research showed network bandwidth would be a problem once they had significant adoption. Lo and behold…
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@CosmoNova@lemmy.world 2026-07-06 06:29
Guy is being a little too trigger happy with this bait and switch but it should still surprise absolutely no one. Starlink with it‘s thousands of satellites, requiring hundreds of rocket launches is ridiculously expensive to operate and can‘t hope to compete with fiber price wise.
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@negativenull@piefed.world 2026-07-06 01:15
I saw my first billboard advertising Starlink in Billings, MT today. They have avoided advertising in the past.
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@SirHaxalot@nord.pub 2026-07-06 06:33
To be fair, the network being crushed by high demand is extremely unsurprising. Cellular networks have always had this problem in dense areas, where it’s no way you’re reaching the advertised speed. This is mainly due to the available channels being shared by everyone in a relatively large area, connected to the same cell. Which is mitigated somewhat by setting up more cells with shorter range for a higher cell density in cities. How could a satellite based network ever scale? Where you have what, a handful available cells to cover an entire state?
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@MehBlah@lemmy.world 2026-07-07 02:48
I have a neighbor who has access to 1gb cable and 1gb fiber from two ISP’s. Both have high data caps. Instead he is rocking the starlink and I can’t for the life of me figure out how he thinks that shit is somehow better than a hard link.
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@Einskjaldi@lemmy.world 2026-07-07 03:24
Didn’t they just drop the startup equipment costs a lot?
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@HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 2026-07-07 00:50
We have terrestrial radio and cables. What is the point of this complex space-based trash?
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@drmoose@lemmy.world 2026-07-06 18:26
This is why satelite internet is a dead end. The latency and bandwidth are fundamental limitations of physics which are incredibly expensive to scale up compare to cable and cell towers. Even if we have a complete satellite roll out we’d still have to go back to cell towers for better latency. So why even entertain this detour if not for war machines - one niche where satellites are actually better.
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@arc99@lemmy.world 2026-07-06 18:56
Satellite internet is a last resort. People shouldn’t be using it if they have fibre broadband or 5G options that provide the same speeds. It’s a lifesaver if you’re on a boat, or live off grid, or just a few miles from where the broadband ends. But if it’s anywhere with other people then it’s going to max out with horrible contention. At the point the only option is “moar satellites”.
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@percent@infosec.pub 2026-07-08 03:36
Ah great. My Starlink hardware just arrived. I wasn’t charged any high-demand surcharge though. I probably wouldn’t have ordered it if I had to pay one of those. I don’t think my area will have high demand for Starlink anyway. Even their fastest options are slow. There are options for like 5-10x the speed around the same price in my area. The only downside: There’s like a 50% chance of lightning frying my modem each year, and it takes like a week to get a tech on site. Starlink is a great backup connection. It’s cheap to just keep in standby mode (~$15/month, IIRC). An unexpected, heavy surcharge might be a deal breaker though
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@DupaCycki@lemmy.world 2026-07-07 14:33
The country that invented the internet… has the worst internet infrastructure in the developed world. Worse than some developing countries too. Astonishing.