Being the Best and Frequently Only Option Does not Make You a Monopoly

On Starlink

In the federal government’s never ending quest to go after Elon Musk, the FCC Chair today said Starlink is an illegal monopoly.

Well, sure, it’s the only currently available low earth orbit constellation of satellites that provides high speed broadband internet. But that most certainly does not make them a monopoly.

Starlink got where it is by being an idea that almost everyone said was stupid and impossible. I remember its early days. It was a pie in the sky idea. In fact, Starlink would be completely impossible unless SpaceX had figured out how to reuse its rockets cheaply and frequently, thus driving down launch costs dramatically. One directly led to the other. Meanwhile, the technological innovation behind Starlink is mind boggling. It was derided as a pipe dream when it was announced.

And now just because it’s become wildly successful that makes it a monopoly?

No one else had the vision, the capabilities, and the capital to make something like Starlink happen except SpaceX. And they are rightly reaping the rewards from investing tens of billions into an insane idea. Meanwhile, other constellations, only dreamt up after Starlink looked like it would be a success, have barely even launched their first satellites.

In addition, Starlink does so well because it’s frequently the only available option. Rural adoption has been heavy for several reason. First, it’s expensive to build out high speed internet in rural communities so they almost always have terrible terrestrial options run by one (maybe two) companies. Second, the US government gave hundreds of billions of dollars to providers like AT&T to build out rural internet and the companies famously just pocketed the money and actually connected very few homes with near-illegal accounting tricks.

These are now the same companies pushing the FCC to regulate Starlink since they are hemorrhaging customers.

Even the US government can’t slow Starlink down. A few years ago, under the Trump administration, they were supposed to receive a $400 million grant to help connect rural Americans to the Internet. AT&T, Comcast, and others objected and the Biden administration ruled that Starlink was “unproven technology.” How exactly? Because they didn’t contribute to your campaign? And now this unproven technology as you said last year suddenly is an illegal monopoly?

Crony capitalism does no one any good and the US government picking winners and losers based upon political connections needs to end immediately. Starlink has massive market share because they took massive risk. That’s not a monopoly, that’s making your own game.