🗞 What's New: SpaceX plans to launch high-speed internet across the globe

Starlink, SpaceX's satellite internet provider, is planning an IPO:

• Over a third of US remote workers report that poor internet connectivity has lowered their productivity during the pandemic, and nearly 43M Americans have no internet at all. Starlink aims to provide high-speed internet across the globe.
• 40% of buyers trust online reviews less than they did 5 years ago, and for good reason. The fake reviews industry is booming, and Amazon recently sued over a thousand sellers for flooding the site with fake product reviews.
• Half of Americans adults now consider themselves podcast fans. Searches for "podcast show notes" have increased by 155% since August as podcasters improve their shows. Founders can tap into this emerging industry.

Want to share your ideas with nearly 70K indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing

🎇 SpaceX Plans to Launch High-Speed Internet Across the Globe

from the Indie Economy newsletter by Bobby Burch

Upwork estimates that 36.2M Americans (22% of the US workforce) will be working remotely by 2025. This estimation represents an 87% increase in remote workers since 2020.

Poor connectivity is hindering remote work

The no-background: Despite the increase in remote work during the pandemic, affordable, reliable internet is still a challenge for many communities in the US. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reports that 21.3M Americans lack access to broadband internet. However, an independent research firm asserts that the FCC's report grossly underestimates the number of people without internet; it estimates that the figure is closer to 42.8M.

While the digital divide is often thought of as a rural/urban split, US Census data indicates that about 3x as many households in urban areas lack internet as in rural areas.

Effects on the creator economy

America's internet issues not only affect remote work, but also stifle digital entrepreneurs and the growth of the creator economy. Freedom and flexibility are commonly shared values in the indie hackers community, and the ability to move freely and work from anywhere is an important factor in the future of the creator economy.

As COVID-19 forced accelerated transitions to remote work, poor internet connectivity has affected productivity. More than a third of remote workers report that weak internet connections have prevented them from being productive at some point during the pandemic.

Subpar internet has a two-fold effect on digital nomads. It not only makes it harder to get work done, but it also makes large enterprises less confident in hiring them. While service providers and the advent of 5G could improve internet performance, large employers may see similar productivity statistics and hesitate to expand remote work opportunities.

Connecting the unconnected

Bigger, more diverse market: Thanks to internet access challenges and cost barriers, there are tens of millions of potential consumers that the digital economy cannot currently reach.

The digital divide spans all geographics and demographics but disproportionality impacts minority and low-income communities. The states with the largest unconnected populations are: Texas (4.17M people), California (2.35M), Oklahoma (1.66M), Florida (1.6M) and Michigan (1.59M).

To help enable access to the internet, the FCC voted in February to provide up to $50 per month toward broadband internet for low-income households. This program should help to usher in a larger, more diverse market of internet consumers. Similar initiatives to bridge the digital divide are EveryoneOn and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance.

Stronger economy: More digital consumers means more opportunities for indie hackers. Consider the impact of the digital divide on the broader economy:

• The US loses about $2.16 of potential economic activity every day that a person is not connected to the internet, according to a Deloitte analysis. That translates to about $130M in lost opportunity every day.

• Students are about 7% more likely to earn a high school diploma with an internet connection, and will earn $2M more over their lifetimes, in comparison to those who lack internet access.

• An unemployed person with at-home internet access will, on average, find work seven weeks faster than one without internet access, and will earn over $5K more annually, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Some encouraging trends

Rare bipartisan agreement: Initiatives to improve broadband in the US have broad bipartisan support. States across the country are taking steps to improve internet access to rural and low-income communities, most recently Nebraska.

The COVID-19 relief bill passed in December provided $7B for broadband programs, and a House committee advanced a bill to provide $7.6B for internet improvements for students and teachers.

Better FCC data: In August, the FCC announced it'd improve the accuracy of its research and mapping of broadband access. The new rules require providers to submit geospatial maps of where they provide service, which will give regulators a better sense of the digital divide and where to allocate resources.

The Starlink solution

Starlink to IPO: One of SpaceX's most profitable subsidiaries, satellite internet provider Starlink, is planning an IPO once the company can better predict its cash flow.

Starlink comprises about 25% of all active satellites; it has currently launched ~1K satellites, and plans to deploy 12K in total, aiming to offer high-speed internet everywhere on earth. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk believes that Starlink could rake in more than $30B per year. The service already has 10K users paying $100/month for download speeds of 100 Mbps and upload speeds of 20 Mbps.

As remote work continues to rise, the need for reliable internet services is more important than ever. 58% of non-freelancers who turned to remote work during the pandemic are now thinking of continuing to freelance in the future, according to Upwork.

Have you experienced issues with poor internet during the pandemic? How have you addressed them?

Discuss this story, or subscribe to Indie Economy for more.

📰 In the News

from the Volv newsletter by Priyanka Vazirani

😭 Rosie Sherry, our community manager at Indie Hackers, is stepping down after two years.

💸 Twitter is testing a way for indie hackers to sell products through tweets.

📺 Netflix adds "Fast Laughs" tab, a TikTok-like feed of 15-45 second clips from Netflix's comedy catalog of original shows, to help viewers discover something new to watch.

💳 Klarna is Europe's most-valued fintech firm, with a $31B valuation. The buy-now-pay-later platform raised $1B in its latest funding round.

🛑 Google will no longer sell ads based on users' browsing history and will stop using technology that identifies users across several websites. This decision represents is a major win for privacy initiatives in regulating the internet.

Check out Volv for more 9-second news digests.

🤥 The Fake Reviews Industry is Booming

from the User Acquisition Channels newsletter by Darko G.

40% of US consumers trust online reviews less than they did five years ago. The fake reviews industry is thriving, and the decrease in consumer trust has huge implications for e-commerce.

Google and Amazon are taking action

BBC recently covered how widespread fake reviews are on Amazon. Google also recently removed 55M fake Google Maps reviews.

What's going on? Marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, or the Shopify App Store are major channels for getting sales. The primary way to increase your rank on these channels so that you appear first when someone types "men's shoes" on Amazon, for instance, is through reviews.

Reviews on marketplaces are the equivalent of backlinks on Google.

Skewed reviews: Many companies buy a ton of fake reviews for their products, and hope they don't get banned. History shows that this is a risky strategy.

Google has been successfully cracking down on paid links and de-indexing nearly 3M business sites that rely on them. Amazon has been known to sue sellers who buy fake reviews. It recently sued 1K sellers who had between 30-40% fake reviews on their products.

The bottom line: If you're targeting marketplaces, your success will majorly depend on reviews. Although it may be tempting to jumpstart your reviews with fake posts, you may pay the price down the line. Losing consumer trust or being the target of legal action won't be worth the potential boost.

Google Sheets is full of useful data

A Reddit user recently posted about a neat Google search trick to find open spreadsheets with data on anything you want. This is the search operator:

Example: Search for Product Hunt, and you'll find a lot of useful sheets; there's a research template and 160+ places to post your product (Product Hunt being one of them):

Replace "product hunt" with any other acquisition channels (you can use my pdf for inspiration) and use the resulting information.

The paradox of content marketing

The problem: Writing beginner-level articles has a wide appeal, but they're not likely to garner mentions by industry experts (who are usually also followed by the beginners). Backlink mentions also determine a site's SEO ranking.

On the other hand, writing about highly-specific, experimental results may earn you the admiration of industry experts, but could confuse beginners.

So how do you write content that appeals to beginners but is also shared by experts? A recent article answered that question.

Try to hit the sweet spot. There are many different approaches that marketers can take to do this.

Have you been burned by fake reviews? What are your thoughts on the drastic decline in consumer trust of online reviews? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Discuss this story, or subscribe to User Acquisition Channels for more.

🍪 Growth Bite: Offer Dollars or Free Months as Incentives

from the Growth Bites newsletter by James Fleischmann

Long-term subscription plans help with cashflow and boost revenue. It's common practice to incentivize these with a percentage discount, but you can get more takers by offering dollars or free months.

When LOLA offered a percentage discount for a 6-month plan, people selected it roughly 8.5% of the time. That's not bad. But when they offered dollar discounts, that number increased to 19.5%. And when they offered it in terms of free months, it increased to 22.94%. The value of ten dollars is easy to understand, as is the value of getting a month for free. But a percentage doesn't feel as solid, and it requires customers to do the math themselves. That little bit of friction had a big impact for LOLA. It should be noted that LOLA creates physical products, but this trend should translate to other types of subscriptions as well.

Discuss this story, or subscribe to Growth Bites for more.

🎙 The Podcast Show Notes Business is Killing It

from the Exploding Topics newsletter by Josh Howarth

Searches for podcast show notes have increased by 155% since we first covered it back in August. With the creator economy growing every day, podcasts are a staple in the indie hackers community.

Podcast Show Notes

Podcast show notes are comprised of text and links that go along with a specific podcast episode. These are typically hosted on the podcaster's website.

The demand for information around podcast show notes is quickly turning into a cottage industry with best practices, tools, and dedicated services.

The increased interest in show notes is largely due to the growth in podcasts in general: approximately 50% of Americans now consider themselves "podcast fans." It is estimated that the number of monthly podcast listeners in the US will reach 164M by 2023.

What's next: Podcast show notes are part of the Platform-Specific Tools and Services meta trend. As platforms evolve, businesses demand tools, equipment and services specifically for the given platform. Other examples of this meta trend include Later.com, Descript, YouTube captions and Shopify SEO.

Check out the full post to see this week's other three exploding topics.

And join Exploding Topics Pro to see trends 6+ months before they take off.

Discuss this story, or subscribe to Exploding Topics for more.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

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Also, you can submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter.

Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Nathalie Zwimpfer for the illustrations, and to Bobby Burch, Priyanka Vazirani, Darko G., James Fleischmann, and Josh Howarth for contributing posts. —Channing