this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2024
665 points (98.4% liked)

News

23296 readers
4106 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world -5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

not the charitable donation you seem to think it is.

I never claimed it was a charitable donation.

I'm just astounded you are defending marketing this deceptive.

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.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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?

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world -4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Your right, except Starlink doesn't offer free service to new customers normally.

So it is something special they don't normally do.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So... a "special offer to new customers?"

Again, a very common thing that businesses do all the time regardless of a hurricane.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world -4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Why cant you understand that elon musk is a generous angel who is trying to cash in on peoples fema checks?

/s