"I'd consider this public pollution caused by extremely greedy billionaires ruining the planet."

This is such a weird framing, as if Starlink was a frivolous project for some rich person's fun.

There is genuine demand for orbital ISP from people, including people in poorer countries whom a better connectivity may help improve their incomes and lives, where an alternative is basically impossible (you won't get optic fibre in the Himalayas or Papua or the Andes anytime soon, if ever).

20 million people are now using Starlink and that number will almost certainly grow to maybe ten times as many, eventually. Ukraine uses Starlink to defend itself from being devoured by an aggressor. Sailors and other people in far away places use Starlink to keep in touch with their families.

Did you know that before Starlink, the South Pole Base had just 2x256 kB connection for everyone?

I get the "pollution" angle, but not the "hey, one guy is ruining the planet" angle. At the very least, all the customers are complicit, and I would add all the governments that don't seem to be able to build terrestrial connections for their own population.

But the government doesn’t have to allow a monopoly to exist. SpaceX wouldn’t exist without government contracts and support. The government should cultivate an ecosystem not a monopoly.

In my YC batch there were rocket companies. We should see more.

But the origin of SpaceX is not one of a government-cultivated monopoly. There were more than 200 space startups so far, I believe, and the vast majority of those simply went belly up. SpaceX was once an absolutely unremarkable element of this large set and they almost went belly up as well - their fourth (and first successful ) launch of Falcon 1 was literally the last one that they had money for. Even 5 years into their existence, no one would be able to foretell that it will be them and not anyone else who eventually becomes the behemoth is its.

If someone really fits the description of a quasi-monopoly systematically supported by the government for decades, it is Boeing and ULA in general. They get/got all the cost-plus contracts that were the real cash cow. SpaceX only got fixed-cost contracts.

I rooted for a lot of companies, my favorite was Armadillo Aeronautics by John Carmack, because I admire Carmack. But space seems to be genuinely hard.

Ah yes, won't someone think of the penguins

Billionaires are not responsible for this, we the people are. Market forces and society chose this.

You are emotionally disregulated and unable to think critically.

Your second sentence was unnecessary and unproductive and undermined your first point.

I agree with you. I still stand by the statement because it was a neutral observation that should be stated.

Many people are too morally outraged to think straight anymore, as plainly demonstrated, but who can blame them. Hope they take it as a gentle nudge for them get out of the outrage cycle.