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Would it be possible to move data centers into space? Would it be cost effective? It would be better for the planet from a climate change point of view but how practical is it? How many servers could you fit on board Startship? Maybe it would be better to send the raw material (silicon/graphene whatever) into orbit and do the manufacture there. How cool would it be to buy Raspberry Pi's made in orbit. Most manufacturing is already done by robots. Why not in space? I guess if Musk is fully focused on going to Mars, shipping servers into orbit will be the last thing on his mind but what if Amazon or the NYSE moved their servers into orbit? Would everyone follow?
If getting into orbit is no longer the key technical challenge, whats the next biggest challenge to putting data centers in space? All communication between the data centers and earth (as well as each other) would be laser/light speed. That's got to be a solved problem, right? But what about heating, cooling, solar power? Any guesses as to how long it will take for this to happen?
Just thought I'd ask.
Hypothesis: Tracking primarily benefits advertisers. Adverts are primarily delivered in the browser by JS. By disabling JS, my value to advertisers is diminished. As data collectors can't sell my data at a profit, they should stop collecting my data.
Is that hypothesis valid?
My own motivation for disabling JavaScript was simply to avoid experimental DHTML stuff (like wierd mouse effects) back in the day - not privacy or tracking - but I'm still really happy with that choice - I get to browse a quieter web. But has it made me less worth while to track?
If it was just me as a NoJS user, advertisers wouldn't bother about it. But imagine if Halloween was the start of an annual 'NoJS Week' during which everyone disabled JS. Would worldwide advertising spend drop and if so, by how much? 1%? 10%? 90%? And what kind of drop would we see in sales?
1. As a tracked human, do I have an advertising value? 2. Is my advertising value less than someone who enables JS? 3. Do advertisers measure this? 4. Are there just too few NoJS users for this to matter? 5. If I disable JS, am I still worth tracking?
[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29042791