During the current space race there seems to pop up new companies almost every week with a new angle of EO (earth observation) data collection. There are privately run satellite constellations for traditional optic imagery (Planet), SAR data (Capella Space, Umbra Space), hyperspectral imagery (Hypersat, Kuva Space, Orbital Sidekick, Pixxel), IR imagery (constellr, Hydrosat) and in the last few days we heard about NUVIEW that will map the entire land surface using LiDAR to create 3D earth data.<p>This is undoubtedly cool stuff, but I have started to think about whether all this data is needed (i.e. has a paying customer). Who is buying the data? I remember years ago when people anticipated that financial analysts could use "real-time" satellite imagery of Walmart parking lots to monitor the economy. Is that happening today? These new EO companies list many different examples in their use cases: defense and intelligence, agriculture, disaster management, situational awareness, etc, etc. But again, who is buying the data? Do farmers really use satellite data for crop health monitoring?<p>The infrastructure behind the data is obviously rather expensive. So far, I guess VC is paying for the party, but sooner or later there must be some proper revenue from proper customers.<p>I guess my underlying question is whether this EO satellite data industry is durable.