As Elon Musk likes to do whenever disaster hits somewhere in the world, Hurricane Helene was another opportunity to show off his generosity and make himself part of the news. This time, Musk made headlines with a promise that SpaceX Starlink would be free for 30 days to help in places where fiber and cellular infrastructure might have been knocked offline. More than 200 people have been identified as dead in the disaster.
But the catch is that it’s really not free at all. It really looks like not much more than a glorified new-customer promotion.
For one, anyone interested in taking up the offer still has to pay approximately $400 for the dish itself (including shipping and tax) and they’re getting automatically rolled into a $120 per-month contract when the free month ends.
So what? If they don’t give it back, they owe $400.
Bullshit. Neither the local ISP I am using now nor shitty Spectrum when I had it charged me a dime. When we switched to the local ISP, Spectrum just wanted it back. The local ISP has a hell of a lot less money than any company Musk owns, and yet they can somehow handle giving out their equipment to tens of thousands of customers for free until they are returned.
And yet companies like Comcast charge $5+ per month to rent their shitty modem, and will even charge customers who never had a rental modem at all. Your area isn’t indicative of the entire country.
Spectrum literally serves the entire country.
If Spectrum can do it, so can Musk.
I’m just astounded you are defending marketing this deceptive.
“Free as long as you don’t count the $400 initial cost and also you will be forced to pay $120 a month if you forget to go through all the hoops we will force you to go through in order to cancel in 30 days” is not the charitable donation you seem to think it is.
I never claimed it was a charitable donation.
I’m not defending anything. The “marketing” is not deceptive. Starlink said they would provide free service… And that’s what they’re doing.
Everyone else is assuming that would include other shit like free hardware that Starlink never claimed and has never offered free previously. There is absolutely zero reason to expect free hardware here, yet that seems to be what you all are expecting for some reason.
Dude, you’re talking about a standard ISP offer. It is not any more a “free service” than any other ISP giving you one moth without paying a monthly fee. This does nothing to help hurricane victims despite it being pushed that way.
Seriously, is the whole concept of “the first month is free if you sign up” new to you?
Your right, except Starlink doesn’t offer free service to new customers normally.
So it is something special they don’t normally do.
So… a “special offer to new customers?”
Again, a very common thing that businesses do all the time regardless of a hurricane.
A “very common thing” that Starlink does not do.
You’re angry about a company offering something in the hurricane affected area that they don’t normally do with regular customers.
It doesn’t matter if other companies offer something similar normally to new customers, Starlink does not do this, so it is a special thing for the Hurricane areas.
Not sure why this is so hard for you to understand here, other than a blinding bias.
Ah, I see, out of the kindness of their heart, Starlink is having an unprecedented one-month-free sale for new customers surviving a hurricane, something many, many, many companies do all the time when there isn’t a hurricane, but they don’t usually do.
And I’m angry that is being hailed as some sort of helpful or even heroic gesture on their part rather than, you know, a limited-time sale.
That’s marketing being reported as fact. They’re having a sale, that’s all that’s happening. Stop suggesting there’s anything more to it than that just because they want you to think it.
SpaceX isn’t selling the dishes at a loss anymore. That was a a generation or 2 ago. I don’t know if they make a profit or they’ve just met costs though.