In 2013, Google shocked us by announcing Project Loon, an attempt to spread wireless connections from balloons floating 20 km above the earth. Now, as first reported by Wired, Google’s parent company Alphabet pulls the plug on it, apparently because it could not make the whole thing commercially viable. Loon CEO Alistair Westgarth writes in a blog post: “Although we found a number of willing partners along the way, we have yet to find a way to make costs low enough to build a long-term, sustainable business. “
In 2018, Loon (along with the Wing delivery drunks) moved up from X-moon shot projects to full-fledged sections within the Alphabet. But now, X’s CEO, and Loon chairman, Astro Teller, “despite the team’s groundbreaking technical achievements over the past 9 years, the road to commercial viability has proved much longer and more risky than hoped.”