Conversely, why do the the satellite owners own the sky?

Space is a shared resource. One use shouldn't infringe on another.

Satellite owners don't own the skies, in the sense astronomers are trying to argue they do.

You're going to have to show me the quote that makes you think astronomers claim to "own" the skies instead of just not having their usage limited and infringed upon.

Are other cars on the highway infringing upon my usage by making me sit in traffic?

I don't remember the sky being awarded to America either.

I don't remember America claiming it was. The relevant international treaties are being followed. Also not all these companies are American. OneWeb is a UK company soon to be owned by the UK government and an Indian conglomerate. The satellites it launches are built in cooperation with Airbus, a European company.

Other countries can, and do, put satellites up all the time.

Astronomers don't "own" the skies, the rest of humanity simply considers the benefits of astronomy to be higher than some satellite internet vanity project.

A bit preposterous to speak on behalf of "the rest of humanity", don't you think?

We can judge the value humanity places on astronomy by looking at how much money is allocated for it. I suspect it will come out less valuable, to humanity, than the service Starlink will provide.

> We can judge the value humanity places on astronomy by looking at how much money is allocated for it.

That is a very naive viewpoint.

Yes, I am sure astronomers believe in their hearts that whey they are doing is supremely important and valuable. But astronomers should also understand selection bias. Astronomers are inherently biased to believe highly of the value of what they are doing, or they would not be astronomers.

Elon Musk and some investors don't represent humanity. Hell I doubt even SpaceX values Starlink all that much, most employees I know say that it exists mostly as a filler payload during launches.

The fact that they are doing tens of dedicated launches solely for Starlink says otherwise.

Starlink is looking to be a multi-billion dollar business by itself.

Whose whole point was a sustainable funding source for SpaceX R&D. In this sense, it's fair for SpaceX employees to consider it "filler payload", given that they have their sights set on Mars. And everyone else, astronomers included, will benefit from drastically cheaper access to space.