Starlink has 12 million subscribers, or about 0.14 percent of the population of Earth. In addition to paying for Starlink, those subscribers are externalizing costs to everybody else on Earth... for instance by screwing up radio astronomy.

It is unreasonable to talk about allowing 0.14 percent of the people on Earth to have Internet as if "Internet for people on earth" were at stake. I mean, yes, they are people, and they are on Earth. You could say the same if it were two people... but that's not the slant intended by phrasing that way.

It's especially unreasonable when many of those 0.14 percent want Starlink because of their personal lifestyle choice to live in the middle of nowhere. Yes, I know, somebody's grandpappy built his farm with his own two hands and the help of his trusty plow goat, Irving. That doesn't mean that person is entitled to infinite subsidies in the form of satellite access, fiber, roads, electricity, hospitals, or anything else. Economic activity can justify some of those things (and a lot of that can be priced in by markets). If you're not doing something useful, and you can't pay for all that stuff including traditionally-externalized costs, then move.

Streaming video on airplane flights?

Most of Starlink’s customers are simply rural people who want Internet access at decent speeds. There are wide swathes of the US where Starlink’s best competition is measured in kilobytes per second.

Seems like a case for the US having better fibre deployment than it does for leaking interference from unshielded poorly made tin cans.

Fibre rolls in a dense city have different economics from somewhere with just a few people per square mile.

Pretty sure we achieved that level of coverage here in the US a decade or more earlier than that. A lot of those same rural customers still rely on the telephone system for Internet access. They might be able to get DSL now, but the speeds are going to be low; often just a few hundred kilobits per second.

So pull modern fibre; as should be done.

And who pays for those miles of fiber? That one customer, because he chose to live there?

I assume you understand that it that's the case, Starlink is a much better option as it won't cost them 5 figures upfront

This is beside the point. Starlink exists and provides excellent service to customers who have no alternatives.

Don't even need fiber. Starlink is only on par with 5G.

It's a leaky tin can system interfering with radio astronomy, that's not "on par" with either fibre or ground based 5G.

Shield it properly (as promised) or ditch it.

Or... hear me out: put up a cell tower and don't waste energy throwing devices that literally burn up in the atmosphere in a few years. Yeah, that doesn't really help boats or people in the middle of the Amazon. Satellite internet is not long term infrastructure.

~80% of Starlink customers are not in the US.

That'd be a point to make to the GP db48x

No, I mean globally most of their customers are rural. Starlink is limited primarily by customer density rather than by absolute numbers. They can provide service to just so many people per square mile before the speed drops below the customer’s tolerance. Most of the square miles in the world are rural, therefore most of the customers are as well.

Plus cities have Starlink’s best competition. Starlink is amazing but FTTH is even better. If you can get FTTH at all then you probably won’t even consider Starlink. Nor should you.

Suburban+Urban is more than rural.

Rural more than Urban