Alphabet's Loon Failed to Bring Internet to the World -- What Went Wrong?

AnonTechie writes:

IEEE Spectrum has an interesting analysis on why this project failed.

Alphabet's Loon Failed to Bring Internet to the World -- What Went Wrong?

Loon's soaring promise to bring Internet access to the world via high-altitude balloons deflated last week, when the company announced that it will be shutting down. With the announcement, Loon became the latest in a list of tech companies that have been unable to realize the lofty goal of universal Internet access.

The company, a subsidiary of Alphabet (which also includes the subsidiary of Google), sought to bring the Internet to remote communities that were otherwise too difficult to connect.

It's not entirely surprising that Loon wasn't able to close the global connectivity gap, even though the shutdown announcement itself seemingly came out of the blue. While the company had experienced some success in early trials and initial deployments, the reality is that the inspiring mission to "connect the next (or last) billion users" touted by tech companies is more difficult than they often realize.

[...] Any network deployment is going to cost money, of course. And part of the problem with companies like Loon, according to Sonia Jorge, is that they expect unreasonable returns. Jorge is the executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), a global initiative to reduce the costs of Internet access, particularly in developing areas. In the tech industry, "very fast growth has yielded expectations of very high and very fast returns," Jorge says, but in reality, such returns are uncommon. That goes double for companies connecting poorer or more remote communities.

Read more of this story at SoylentNews.