CSpaceX just posted that they're launching 27 more Starlink satellites from California.
MBusiness as usual, then.
CNot for me. I'm still not used to a booster flying for the THIRTY-SIXTH time.
MThirty-six? For the same booster?
CAnd it's going to try to land on a droneship called 'A Shortfall of Gravitas'.
MThey name those ships like a midlife crisis names a boat. But fine, 36 flights is a genuinely wild number.
CThe booster first flew years ago. Now it's dodging retirement and hauling up satellites for a 174-market network.
MAnd the deeper story here is the money. Starlink pulled in $5.2 billion in connectivity revenue last quarter alone.
CShotwell pitches it as reaching schools, disaster zones, all of it.
MBut here's where I push back: they added 1.6 million customers in one quarter. That's enormous, and I still don't think it justifies the hype until they prove the V3 satellites on Starship actually work.
CThey're launching 27 today, and the plan is to move to Starship launches with over 20 times the downlink capacity.
MRight. But the CFO himself said Starship's flight rate is critical to future growth. 'Future' is doing a lot of work there.
CAnd when Starship works the way they say, satellite internet stops being a niche product and becomes a utility. That's the whole argument.
MI get that. But right now, the Falcon 9 is the proven workhorse. Starship is still a rocket that has to prove it can launch payloads on a schedule, not just occasionally.
CSo you want me to be unimpressed by a reusable booster flying 36 times? Just because Starship hasn't hit its cadence yet?
MI want you to separate the launch today from the business case for tomorrow. And I don't think it's wrong to say Starship's still the bottleneck.
CThe bottleneck is also the answer. They're building the machine that builds the network. That's not hype, that's just engineering.
MSold as a story, it's great. Sold as a revenue plan, it's still 'wait and see.'
CI'll wait. You can wait less enthusiastically.
MSpeaking of people selling stories, here's one from a different corner of the internet.
MKyle Tibbitts, who works at a travel platform called Wander, posted that the AI era is the direct booking era for travel operators.
C'AI era is direct booking era'—that's a lot of words to say 'we want you to pay us instead of a middleman.'
MHis actual point: bookings from agents are surging on their platform, both on their own site and through booking engines they power.
CI've used AI assistants to plan trips. They'll suggest a flight, a hotel, and suddenly you're three tabs deep in an affiliate link.
MAnd that's what Tibbitts is saying operators can win: if you own the direct relationship, you don't lose the customer to a search engine.
CBut a hotel chain's 'direct booking' is just another checkout page. The AI assistant doesn't care who gets the commission.
MUnless the assistant works for the operator. That's the play. It books direct, then the operator keeps the margin.
CSo every travel company with a logo is about to launch their own AI agent. Great. More pop-ups asking me to 'say hello' to a floating concierge.
MMeanwhile, real travelers are using AI to write pickup lines and failing at it.
CThat's not a news story. That's just Tuesday on the internet.
MBuffalo Waltz posted a picture of himself after using a pickup line his friend suggested, then said 'he's the one to blame.'
CAnd then adds he's also the one blaming ChatGPT in the next frame. The AI generated the line, the friend delivered it, and everyone's responsible except the guy who used it.
MI actually think that's the whole AI era in one image: nobody takes responsibility for what the machine says.
CIt's a joke about a bad pickup line, Matilda. Not a referendum on agency.
MIt can be both. The kid outsources the blame to the tool, and the tool has no idea what it did.
CIt never does. That's the point.
MAnd that's the show, really: who takes responsibility for the line, and who's just talking about it.