Your original post says 70% loss, i.e. 30% efficiency. In the context of an e-bike, to me, 70% efficiency is fine. It's a large bike and the majority of the power for the majority of users is likely going to be coming from the battery anyways.
Also presumably we should be comparing the efficiency to other ebikes not traditional bikes. I'm not sure how effective traditional ebikes are at integrating motor + human power together but I'd imagine there are some additional losses.
Mine goes somewhat unused because of this (although definitely less than 10 swipes per try). If I was to buy another ereader I'd want at a minimum physical buttons for forward/back.
What caused people to stop using the free service that is MySpace? What caused people stop using the free service that is Digg? Being free isn't particularly novel. Facebook isn't providing this service out of some sense of altruism. It is incredibly profitable.
What about the tariffs would cause people to stop using it? Because they - along with many other of the administrations postulations and policies - are incredibly unpopular and a complete 180 of US foreign trade policy. Because tech is a money printing machine for the US and tech oligarchs who have largely bent the knee to Trump.
Countries can and have under the name of "digital services tax". Generally the rates are low and often only cover a subset of things. The US and tech giants have historically pushed back hard on them. This is a reasonably up to date link to the situation in Europe https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/eu/digital-tax-europe-202... Keep in mind many of those are proposed and not implemented.
The real threat to the US IMO is losing marketshare. The stock market has gotten beat up but most of the real pain for the average person is still off in the horizon. Anti-US sentiment is growing quickly, if we enter a full blown global recession/depression I think it could be a real catalyst for large sudden shifts away from US tech companies.
Almost all the trade deficit numbers being thrown around by the US administration don't include trade in services which the US generally has a large surplus. A lot of that is very high margin tech SASS/advertising.
If this continues it seems like this could be a "digg->reddit" type moment for US tech. In some ways it is easier for a lot of people to leave facebook than it is for a single person. If you look at gross margins there is a lot of room for competition, though network effects make that competition very difficult. Maybe this is the catalyst for competitors to break in.
Seems like there is a lot of higher margin opportunity than residential available in business/gov.
I see they have a business at 500/mo. Wonder what the breakdown is.
Judging from their land coverage they are still a bit off doing container/oil/bulk/cruise/yatchs. With better coverage it seems like yachts/boating could run pretty high margin given the current options.
It will be interesting to see the induced demand starlink has. With remote work it makes stuff like rural housing and long term cruising a viable living option for a lot more people.
The way pricing is going on solar/batteries off grid is becoming pretty reasonable if you are willing to not mcmansion.