As a rural internet user I find it entirely unsurprising.
Starlink has benefitted from a very simple and obvious market deficiency.
Until they came along, the satellite internet providers - the only viable alternative for internet access for people outside of cable or cell service - were universally shitty. They used the fact that they faced no meaningful competition (other than from each other) to provide shitty, data-capped service for far too much money. Pretty much the only choice customers had was whether they preferred getting fucked over by Hughes or getting fucked over by Viasat.
Then Starlink came along with a very simple strategy - to offer better service without data caps for the same or even less money.
And entirely unsurprisingly, it worked.
That’s it really. The existing providers were so awful that all that was necessary for success was for a new company to not be awful. And Starlink is not awful.
As a rural internet user I find it entirely unsurprising.
Starlink has benefitted from a very simple and obvious market deficiency.
Until they came along, the satellite internet providers - the only viable alternative for internet access for people outside of cable or cell service - were universally shitty. They used the fact that they faced no meaningful competition (other than from each other) to provide shitty, data-capped service for far too much money. Pretty much the only choice customers had was whether they preferred getting fucked over by Hughes or getting fucked over by Viasat.
Then Starlink came along with a very simple strategy - to offer better service without data caps for the same or even less money.
And entirely unsurprisingly, it worked.
That’s it really. The existing providers were so awful that all that was necessary for success was for a new company to not be awful. And Starlink is not awful.