[struant]

Why do they give a damn if people are subscribing in the US and using their product in Africa?

If anything they should be using their position to obliterate the whole idea of region-locking anything.

[wkat4242]

Starlink relies on local downlinks (the laser link traffic is of course limited) so they probably just don't have the capacity in those regions. Or lack the permission to offer the service. Many countries forbid most satellite equipment, even big ones like India.

[bradley13]

"Or lack the permission to offer the service."

Musk once said that, in that case, the country's leaders could "shake their fists impotently at the sky". Which is imho the right answer.

[loceng]

A single Starlink could service bandwidth to a whole lot of people through local wired connections - which is a serious disruption to the existing industrial complex-government power structure; is what comes to my mind first.

[ranger_danger]

> Many countries forbid most satellite equipment, even big ones like India.

Do you have a source for this?

[grecy]

> Why do they give a damn if people are subscribing in the US and using their product in Africa?

A government gets to decide what their citizens can have.

Think about it the other way around.

Let's say there is a brand new vehicle for sale in China with no airbags, no abs, no emissions controls of any kind, etc.

People in the US are absolutely NOT allowed to purchase that because the government of the US have decided it goes against the public interest (safety, pollution, etc.).

Just because one country thinks people should be able to conceal carry handguns, that doesn't mean other countries have to allow it.

[struant]

Then it is up to the local government to confiscate their starlink hardware. There is no reason for starlink to respect every single legal jurisdiction's rules. They only need to deal with wherever they connect to ISPs.

[michaelt]

Other people have mentioned the legal/sanctions reasons.

But also, from a business point of view, maximum profit might mean offering a $100 a month service for residential users, a $1000 a month service for billionaires' yachts, a $5000 a month service for private jets, and a $100,000 a month service for defence industry applications.

Charging more for use away from home, based on GPS data, could be very profitable. Especially as you need GPS tracking to beam the signals to the right place anyway.

[jvanderbot]

I am fairly certain the backbone customer for starlink is or will be militaries, not necessarily private jets.

[tiahura]

There are simple well documented answers to your question in the article you didn’t read and elsewhere.

[struant]

You must have read a different article, because "starlink doesn't like it" is the only justification or explanation the article offers for their stance. And that is neither a valid justification nor an explanation.