I'm not sure that's true. From a technical perspective, from what i've seen SpaceX is planning on eventually having them communicate as a web across themselves

I'm not sure that's true. From a technical perspective, from what i've seen SpaceX is planning on eventually having them communicate as a web across themselves. So your "average" communication will be something like "user>base station>sat>sat>sat>base station near destination>destination". Or if the destination is nearby, something like "user>base station>sat>base station>destination" I haven't seen anything claiming that they are going to route all internet through the US. I've actually seen the opposite about how they are planning on using this system to do intercontinental communication at faster latency than undersea fiber can currently do. And to me that implies that they will be taking the most optimal path, which means if neither the source nor the destination is in the US, the communication wouldn't have any reason to enter the US. From a legal/political perspective I could see where you are coming from. It's a US based company, and they comply with US laws, so if push comes to shove they are going to do what the US requires them to. But I very much doubt that SpaceX will end up being a monopoly on internet access. They aren't the only player in this game (OneWeb and Eutelsat are 2 others I know off the top of my head that are working on similar products), and even if they were to become the only "fast satellite internet" company, they aren't targeting "all the internet". For the foreseeable future, the base stations required to communicate with Starlink are expected to be large and power hungry enough that you won't see them in cars or phones or anything super mobile. They hope to get it down to the size of a pizza-box one day. They also don't have the bandwidth to handle all the world's internet access, and likely won't ever have that much bandwidth. Fiber in the ground is still significantly cheaper, faster (unless you are talking intercontinental), and more reliable for most usecases. If things start to look like they could possibly end up at a total monopoly by SpaceX as "the internet company", i'd be right there with you about how this could be a nightmare. But i just don't see that happening, and until it does this is just another ISP.