Of course. And you realize balloons can have an advantage over satellites in certain situations?

I’m just gonna be open minded about it and not jump to conclusions. I could see the US gov making it into a big deal for reasons and I could see it being a balloon to take pics of bases, etc on the ground. Both seem like logical outcomes. I mean it could be a weather balloon but I sorta doubt it based on what I know about weather balloons (I’m an amateur weather nerd). But I could be wrong! I’ll admit that. Gotta keep an open mind.

I don’t want a war with China, that would be awful. I’m just trying to be realistic about it. Seems silly to go through the trouble to make a surveillance craft like that and it not even have the capability to beam back any data.

Can’t say I believe that one bit. With how small transmitters can be these days, why wouldn’t it have one? Sounds to me like damage control. Not a whole lot of details in the article anyway.

I think it’ll take a while for us to know the real overall impact spez’s decision has made on Reddit’s user base. Until then, it’s really just speculation unless something concrete comes out (like financial reports etc).