You are inventing more and more elaborate ways for "this is how Starlink is secretly unprofitable" while we knew it was printing money since 2024.
You can drop SpaceX's launch revenue to zero, fund all of it with Starlink revenue, and the sum is still profitable.
We know "whether Starlink is a viable business": it is. End of story. You better start pivoting towards "but what if future competition" or "the revenue growth is uncertain", because your attempts to wiggle your way out of admitting that Starlink is a money printer now are weak at best.
I have literally been describing the exact same mechanism, which is the actual mechanism that you can actually read about in their financial statements, since this conversation started.
And what is that "mechanism", pray tell? I don't think you have one. Or ever had one, for that matter.
You can't just say "they're hiding the launch costs" and expect it to magically make Starlink unprofitable. Starlink has been bearing launch costs for its entire existence, and if anything, the advent of Starship is likely to make them lower, not higher.
Are you serious? Good lord. Take this article. Go take SpaceX's filings. Ask an LLM to explain how Starlink is accounted for and what the effects of that accounting method are.
It costs me $5 in labor and $20 in ingredients
My margin is -25%
I account for the ingredients as depreciating assets over a 100 year lifespan
It now costs me $5 in labor and $0.09 in ingredients
My margin is now 74%