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I think it is rather dumb and annoying. Dystopian? Far from it.

Do you consider a plane flying by with a banner behind it dystopian? Isn't this more or less the same kind of thing?



Seems to me that some people use dystopian to mean “bad and like something you would see in a dystopian novel/movie.” Which in most cases cashes out to ‘bad and high-tech’


I do consider that similarly bad yes.


Bad, sure, we both agree.

Dystopian has a very specific meaning though.

From Cambridge dictionary: relating to a very bad or unfair society in which there is a lot of suffering, especially an imaginary society in the future, or to the description of such a society.

I fail to see how one can derive "a very bad or unfair society" and "a lot of suffering" from a QR code in night sky.


Using a loud and high visibility technology to inject an unignorable advertisement into a natural space is bad.

I don't know or care what flavor of bad the dictionary would call it. Dystopian works fine for me. Sorry it doesn't for you I guess.


You'd have to take an action to view the advertisement, otherwise, it's just dots.

I kinda wish all other ads were like that, tbh.


Wasn't there some sort of video played before the QR code was displayed? Acting as if it's an opt-in experience feels disingenuous.


And if it's specifically about the night sky and it's integrity, are starlink and iridium satellites distopian?


Absolutely. They take a common good that we have and use it for commercial purpose, Starlink should not be allowed to exist as a product, full stop. It pollutes the view of the sky for the entire Earth, even over countries which do not have access to the service, and for people who aren't happy to have their lives intruded by yet another American corporation.


Do they really "fly" those satellites over areas where they don't provide service and if so, do they have to?


Yes, the way these orbits work, in order to cover one area, they orbits cover the entire globe up at least to that latitude. A geostationary orbit can "fly" above one specific spot, but that's limited to being above equator and very, very far compared to these orbits (~35000 km vs ~1000 km) which makes it worse for communications.

Here's an illustration of the coverage - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#/media/File:Starlink_...


Yes and yes. The stated goal of Starlink is to provide entire world coverage.

https://satellitemap.space/


It's a balance I'd say. Arguably those satelites serve a purpose that ads don't.




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