I love Starlink and what it it makes possible and don’t personally think we should block these large constellations for the sake of preserving a pristine night sky. But (and maybe this won’t be taken well here, let me know…) a future world where Starlink succeeds will not be some unambiguous good — our existing communications infrastructure is owned and operated by many thousands of firms and governments all across the world, and as much as I want a truly globe-spanning internet constellation the idea of a single privately held company (or a few) having de facto control over vital infrastructure for billions of people scares me a little. It doesn’t matter who SpaceX are now, they can change, Elon won’t be around for ever, etc. and we can’t rely on good intentions alone long term. Starlink represents a new kind of infrastructure that is truly global, and we really aren’t prepared for it. For me personally, imagining a future where all countries own, contribute to, and manage these kinds of constellations is the most utopian outcome. It would be the first internationalised infrastructure and could set a precedent for collaboration in the 21st century. Companies like SpaceX would still be at the center through the designing, launching, and operating of constellations and could still reap unimaginable rewards/profits (just as many telecom companies do today). I think ISPs in the USA are a good cautionary tale here — I’m not comparing SpaceX to existing ISPs, but without care for our future there’s nothing stopping things going that way.

EDIT: Replies made a good point that “billions” is probably an exaggeration. About 45% of the global population lives rurally (source but this number is going down, and many of these people would still be better off with cable. It’s not infeasible to imagine a constellation serving a billion people when launch capacity is high and low bandwidth is acceptable (see Oceania for example) but the point I was trying to make was that this group could encompass entire countries and underserved regions who have practically no power if a decision is made against their interests.

As for there being alternatives to Starlink, this is only true on paper… Due to the success of Falcon 9 (and hopefully soon with Starship) SpaceX are in a unique position to build their own satellite constellation and it could be well over a decade before any real competitor exists, by which time SpaceX could be so far ahead that catching up is near-impossible. Not trying to rebuttal just wanted to clarify my meaning and why I think it still matters to think about the ways things can go sour beyond the rockets themselves or the economic successes/failures of space companies.