This is a good point. It's a form of future proofing. Hopefully Apple doesn't drop the ball too hard on backward compatibility.
For me I just want a set of consistent things from car to car. I have a few different vehicles I might switch between on any given day. Carplay works in all of them.
Just based on this conversation we are doomed. Nobody even agrees with you that there is a spending problem. They all think the "wealthy" magically have a ton of untaxed cash flow to solve the insane over spending. There will be no reckoning, no reform so obviously hyper inflation is going to be the out. Scary.
I'm with you, these people you are arguing with just want to spend us into oblivion. If people think we've had high inflation up until now well... we are just getting started.
I don't see how: Starship is a very long running project at this point, and progress has been incremental. Productionizing the basic logistics systems like turning around re-usable launch vehicle took years for Falcon 9, and Starship's haven't even done that yet.
By the end of the year if it's not landing intact yet, now you're 2027.
I'd say 2030 is optimistic (the 2028 moon landing with Artemis straight up isn't going to happen IMO).
SpaceX already has 10,000 satellites on orbit that are basically preview versions of space data centers. They've already paid 5 years of that 5-10 year timeline you outlined.
the math doesn't work. a starlink satellite has ~10kw power consumption. A single ai optimized server rack (GB300) is 140kw. Starlink works because you get a massive benefit from putting networking in space for rural users. no one has made a convincing case as to why putting a data center in space is a benefit that can come anywhere near the drawbacks (inability to service, launch cost, cooling etc)
Even permitting isn't a clear win. You are changing from land permitting (where you can pick the location to be wherever you want) to launch permitting (where you have to coordinate with the federal government for airspace and water closures). Not to mention that with the current regulatory status, a rocket explosion can easily lead to a multi-month mandatory safety review that blocks all new launches.
> changing from land permitting (where you can pick the location to be wherever you want) to launch permitting (where you have to coordinate with the federal government for airspace and water closures)
One of these is orders of magnitudes longer and more complicated than the other. Land permitting always involves multiple layers of government. And most of them are causing months- to yearslong delays. (Power hook-up is another source of delay.) Launch permits are predictably issued by, essentially, a single regulator.
> a rocket explosion can easily lead to a multi-month mandatory safety review that blocks all new launches
Which is equivalent to a regular permiting delay.
The tradeoff is between the cost to launch radiator mass and the delays local and state governments cause in permiting. The first is mediated through launch costs. The latter through interest rates. And right now, the former is going down and the latter going up.
Plenty of world to jurisdiction shop beyond the US, most of which also has cheap land and plenty of sun, and for better and worse much of that world is less regulated than launch (and FCC spectrum licensing if you want your data back) and easier to skip the queue with comparatively small amounts of money. Hell, if you like your unit economics to be dependent on solving physics problems most of the earth's surface doesn't need permits at all...
For me I just want a set of consistent things from car to car. I have a few different vehicles I might switch between on any given day. Carplay works in all of them.