Does the world need it ? Does the world even ask for it ?
Sure, I like internet... but only WHERE and WHEN I want to, not anytime and everywhere !
For example Self driving would really benefit from connectivity for deeper learning models to get to level 5.
Telemedicine , remote learning all have huge potential with connectivity all around the world. Education in developing countries which suffer from lack of infrastructure can (and already does) benefit from tech driven learning
It is easy to say you don't want connectivity everywhere when you don't experience that lack of connectivity a lot of the people do.
It is hard to imagine the kind of applications that will come just like it was hard to imagine what came with web 2.0 /1.0 before .
Also a lot of pressure on urban migration would really reduce with global connectivity. I already know many people moving or considering to move to a rural location with better quality of life only because of starlink.
In that case, how will people in "poor" countries will be able to use it ? Self driving cars ??? Even for the few that can afford it (in the next 10 years), you'll obviously will need a decent road infrastructure... Telemedecine ? Super !!! But is there enough doctor and basic med supply (and cheap enough) ?
So, I guess that the real use will be for internet... In the best case for news and education. But in that case, will it be "cheap enough" for the people in these countries to afford it ? Or will it financially available only to tourists and remote worker ?
For primary care, it helps in preventive care more than cure. Earlier detection of issues can make handling them a lot easier.
You need telemedicine precisely because there are few doctors to go around, and care can be expensive.
There are already few well funded startups offering this along with medicine delivery in India for example, who are doing well. 4G and mobile penetration makes it possible, it doesn't cover everyone but it makes a difference to a large chunk of the population.
Yes
> Sure, I like internet... but only WHERE and WHEN I want to, not anytime and everywhere !
Turn of your phone.
But if we have a commercially viable solution that solve a number of problems, why not do it?
It looks like noboby learned from air or sea pollution, where SOME people pollute for their own benefit a ressource that they don't own... and then let the others pay to clean it
Some doors are very difficult to un-open, and caution is warranted when making sweeping changes to space that may do any number of negative things, including make future spaceflights more difficult, make ground-based space research impossible (increasing the price of future space research and making satellites the only way to do get good data), etc.
You are basically saying 'nobody is allowed to put a boat on this river because I like nature'.
> caution is warranted when making sweeping changes to space that may do any number of negative things, including make future spaceflights more difficult, make ground-based space research impossible
And that why FCC exists and they have mostly agree that this is not actually a problem.
Nobody has a larger intensive not to make future spaceflight harder then SpaceX.
And the idea that all ground-based space research is impossible is equally nonsense that has often been disproven.
Even in your dystopian nightmare, the reality is that within a few years the orbits SpaceX used would be clean again or that based on government order SpaceX could de-orbit 99.9% of all sats in a week.
So how about we allow boats onto the river and figure out if its really the end of civilization to do so.