What alternative would you propose to merging? If the market re-stabilizes in a different position merging could be successful. If a revolution happens, it will probably not, but still better than doing nothing.
Copying. Copying the revolutionary competitor(s). Just don't have qualms. Start small to see that you can do it, then raise all the capital you need to go big.
I'm dead serious. When an innovator/disruptor comes along, if you the reigning champ does not out-innovate them quick, then the reigning champ will have to hand their crown to the newcomer. It's really hard for established players to out-innovate up-and-coming competitors because often the established player wants to milk their current customers, but to out-innovate the newbies requires lowering prices, which requires lowering costs, which requires lowering revenue (and earnings) in the short term in order to enable a brighter future. Reducing revenue and earnings on purpose is culturally really hard for established companies to do.
There are companies that have done this well at times. I'm thinking of Microsoft. It can be done.
I don't know.
> but still better than doing nothing.
Maybe not. Maybe it takes away management attention from figuring out how to actually be competitive in the new environment.
"We have to do something; this is something; therefore we have to do this" is rarely the right thing to do. It's often just a mask for "we don't know what to do".
On the other hand, "we can't figure out what to do, but we're dead if we don't do something, so we're going to do something and hope that it randomly turns out to be useful" may have a higher expectation value than doing nothing.
OK, that's a very cynical take. But Starlink is revolutionizing the business, and historically, merging is what the dinosaur companies often do after the revolution hits. Think of the mergers between Unix workstation vendors as the PC was revolutionizing computing.
Merging lets you get bigger. But in a revolutionary environment, faster wins, bigger doesn't. Merging is therefore a useless response. (In fact, it's worse than useless, because it slows you down.)