The situations are totally different. AT&T made money from LOCAL infrastructure that they had a natural and enforced monopoly on.

Starlink infrastructure is inherently global, their main goal is with minimal effort and cost to connect as my people as possible to distribute the global fixed cost. SpaceX has little intensive to involve itself as deeply in local politics. On a global scale some politics will go in their direction, others away, spending lots of money in each government is not really a very practical strategy.

The US government can force companies to do things sure, and if you have extreme security consideration that goes beyond having a VPN go threw Starlink then Starlink is not for you.

Starlink will not have a monopoly on anything, they have an essentially global outlook and they are trying to offer a uniform standard service from Stockholm to Santiago. So I do actually think its a fair assumption that costumer experience has a chance to be better.

> Tesla just laid off its whole self-driving department

You realize that is totally wrong right?