[readyman]

>It is not the number of base stations that is important, it is the ability to use 5G to create new goods and services (or be more efficient in the use of existing goods and services) that is important, and this is best measured by the monetization of new 5G enabled services and products and their revenue.

In other words, profit is the only thing that matters.

This is a practical definition of insanity.

[czl]

> profit is the only thing that matters

Can an activity be sustainable without involving profit or depending on profitable activities? Please share examples.

When transactions are informed and voluntary and there is profit in a competitive market that is wealth created. The key is to have these conditions and many real economies struggle with this because the payback for corruption and monopoly is high.

[ndriscoll]

Obviously yes. For example a nonprofit municipal communication network that people use for direct video calling with their loved ones, or that a public university uses to distribute free lecture courses.

A great deal of computerized products/services are today intentionally made to require constant upkeep so that they can produce an ongoing revenue stream when when no real work is needed. That's obviously not economically ideal, and their revenue is in some sense a measure of drag.

Consider for example music streaming. At 3 minutes per song and using 128 kbps Opus, you could have your favorite 100,000 tracks stored on your phone for about $15 worth of flash storage. From that perspective, Spotify revenue seems like an absurd thing to include as a measure of "progress", particularly if you mostly listen to music from 30+ years ago, which of course is not being made anymore.

[sofixa]

> Can an activity be sustainable without involving profit or depending on profitable activities? Please share examples

Any sort of public infrastructure such as electric grid, railways, internet, water supply and treatment, roads, libraries, educational institutions.

[friend_and_foe]

I think, and this seems obvious to me hut apparently it's not, that what the author is trying to say is that 5G is useless unless it provides a benefit in peoples lives, and so measuring base stations doesn't actually tell you anything, if it's not useful to people no number of base stations matters.

[hnthrowaway0328]

Insanity it may be, but a foundational rule of Capitalism. It has always been like that, except occasionally the activity happened to improve human lives. But it doesn't have to.