I wrote these comments on Facebook in response to this announcement [edited to correct errors]
The issue here is economic – the false assumption that Loon can and should be a profit center in its own right.
This is why we must think about connectivity as infrastructure and as a for-profit service.
The value (NPV for finance people) has to be measured appropriately. In this case, it is not how much money can be returned to shareholders but how much value can be returned to associated as a whole.
Alas, efforts like Starlink have a similar goal. In the short term, they may be profitable in their niche market, but as connectivity becomes pervasive, we need to shift our thinking from for-profit pipes to creating opportunity.
Loon could've been part of that but failed to escape the gravity of reductionist economics.
This is a point I try to make on this list – we need to focus on communities as the unit of funding and value rather than modeling our efforts on the legacy telecom idea of communications as a service.
Bob Frankston