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I would say that size is irrelevant, as opposed to value delivered. A contract for $10 million that delivers nothing of value, I would presume corrupt. A contract for $10 billion that actually delivers, say, a moon base, I would not. These FCC grants have long seemed corrupt to me because huge amounts of money get paid out to companies that result in hardly anybody getting new connectivity. Questionable value for the amount provided, and then execution and delivery far below expectations.
Is your opinion at all altered by the other comments pointing to contractual provisions that were not reached?
No. To the extent the provisions were not reached (which evidence seems sketchy at best to me), they still delivered much more, in a much shorter period of time, than the other competitors.
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This feels like a legal technical answer. If person A fulfills 5% and person B fulfills 85% it would seem per se corrupt to cancel Bs without cancelling As.
I agree, but once we get into legal technical questions it's realistically beyond the ordinary person's ability to parse. You get dueling experts and the result is mostly determined by burden of proof.
Simple spherical cows a=5% b=85% sure, it's simple. But what if there's evidence that B has maxed out their approach at 85% while A is working on infrastructure that could eventually deliver 100%? B is a mature company while A is a startup? Or if the experts argue that one or another of the statistics turn out to be massaged? Etc etc.
I tend to agree with your comment that Musk/Tesla's achievement in creating a new standard setting luxury car company cannot be overstated. How many other manufacturers have poured cash into trying to make Cadillac/Lincoln/Infiniti/Chrysler/etc into legitimate luxury competitors and failed? Tesla has upended the upper end of the car market in a way comparable to the quartz watch's impact on horology.
But it's never going to be easy to figure out who gets government grants, which is why I tend to oppose them.
Sure one could in theory conclude A is better than B. But would you be on that? 9/10 B is going to be better at the end of the day and if you are going with the 1/10 you really really really need to show “here is the unimpeachable crystal clear rationale.” Especially when you have an admin that has been hostile to Person B.
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