The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov explores this very idea of what would happen if two parallel universes were to interact but had different laws of physics.
All Starlink satellites have relatively short life spans, after which they safely deorbit. Even if something were to go wrong they are in a low enough orbit where it will deorbit itself within months. Not exactly Kessler effect inducing.
If even 1% of Starlink satellites crap out before their planned EOL, there could be hundreds or thousands of them left in orbit for hundreds of years after the constellation is inactive
No way. Orbital decay times increase more or less exponentially, and once you get above the thermopause (which moves around from 500-1000km based upon terrestrial and space weather conditions), atmospheric drag becomes practically 0.
SpaceX is upfront about this in their FCC filings:
"The natural orbital decay of a satellite at 1,150 km requires hundreds of years to enter the Earth’s atmosphere"
All current satellites are in 550 km orbits. They had plans to also launch in 1150 km orbits but they made some FCC filings requesting to reduce the altitude.
On April SpaceX modified the architecture and submitted application to FCC proposing to operate more satellites in lower orbits. Previously they had approval to operate almost 3000 satellites in orbits between 1110-1300 km. Now the modified plan foresees 1500 satellites at altitudes between 540-570 km and another 7500 satellites in orbits around 345 km at later stages.
As manipulative as Google can be, we should keep in mind that Google Maps is incredibly useful and we get to use it for "free". Yes we pay with our data and privacy and Google can do a better job of making that transparent but we can only get so upset when we don't get the full version of a product when we don't want to give our data.
I wouldn't. I also would rather not pay a fee for wikipedia. I would rather not pay a fee for Google searches.
I'm willing to pay a fee for many things but these three services redefined the entire world's productivity levels. Maps, Search and Wikipedia are world-changing (and miraculously, Wikipedia is a non-profit and still manages to exist and be stable. Please donate if you have the means, etc.). The reason they are world-changing is because they're free.
Free: Available to everyone, everywhere, without payment or account gating. It's a huge fucking deal for the world that they are and remain free.
You want to change the world? Make something massively useful to the planet. Then, make it free.
There are plenty of paid-for satnavs. Tomtom Navigation GPS Traffic (Android)/ Tomtom GO (iOS) get good reviews for motoring. Citymapper is free and great for public transport. I'm sure there are many others.
The satnav in my car is pretty good, and doesn't violate my privacy.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find one for walking around. All the battery powered ones seem aimed at hikers, so they're loaded with great wilderness maps, but won't help me find a coffee.
Maps is not free - as you mentioned, you pay with data.
However, there are FOSS and privacy respecting alternatives, most are based upon OpenStreetMap - wikipedia style map of the world. Some data is still lacking, but at least you yourself can fix it if you want to.
There will be people that go to entertainment and drugs as well as people that take that money to add to society. The question is what the net effect is.
This looks like a lot of fun. I just started playing gladiabots (https://gladiabots.com/) which will probably scratch that itch for a while. Exapunks seems to have a bit more of a learning curve and story from what I can tell from the trailer.
