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To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (121594)3/25/2001 1:30:54 PM
From: GST  Respond to of 164684
 
Glenn: "that is not bogus" The idea that all infrastructure, no matter what it is or whether or not it is used and no matter what it costs, is always going to be used productively IS bogus. There is always some dumb stuff in building-out infrastructure. It is a matter of degree.



To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (121594)3/25/2001 1:44:24 PM
From: GST  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 164684
 
Glenn: Let me provide an example -- by no means the most important one, but an example. When Motorola put up 80 low orbiting satellites for Iridium but then could not sign up users for this over-priced and under-used system of communication (and then went bankrupt), Iridium could no longer operate the satellites. The satellites will need to be brought down and burned up on re-entry or taken over by somebody else. It might be possible to find somebody will to pay 5 cents on the dollar for these satellites. But there is no way to say that the infrastructure will be used for sure and no way to say that its "5 cents on the dollar" price was not roughly what was worth in the first place. If some poor fool spent 20 times its worth to put it up and then went bankrupt, it means the resources were very poorly used -- and in this case perhaps completely wasted.