The Flight Tracker That Powered @ElonJet Has Taken a Left Turn
Freeman writes:
A major independent flight tracking platform, which has made enemies of the Saudi royal family and Elon Musk, has been sold to a subsidiary of a private equity firm. And its users are furious.
ADS-B Exchange has made headlines in recent months for, as AFP put it, irking "billionaires and baddies." But in a Wednesday morning press release, aviation intelligence firm Jetnet announced it had acquired the scrappy open source operation for an undisclosed sum.
[...]
ADS-B Exchange may have seen its revenue shoot up, but Stanford says recouping a significant investment-he says Jetnet's opening offers was seven figures, but that he estimates the final deal went down for around $20 million-could take a decade. A quicker route to profit would be to raise prices, make some data available only to paying subscribers, and to charge plane owners to hide information about their aircraft. These are all tactics that have made FlightAware and FlightRadar24 successful."FlightRadar, FlightAware win. Elon wins," Stanford says. "All these guys who were out to get us win."
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