Lack of cross satellite link means that - To serve as an internet backbone they need to bounce off of ground stations - In particularly busy areas where they

Lack of cross satellite link means that - To serve as an internet backbone they need to bounce off of ground stations - In particularly busy areas where they might otherwise have routed traffic up, laterally, down they have to now go up, down resulting in 0.5x local available bandwidth. - The latency is a few ms higher on long routes when using starlink as a backbone None of this particularly effects their ability to serve as a consumer ISP. The advantages are still there. Also cross satellite laser links are still the plan as far as the public has been told, just somewhat delayed. > Gwynne saying we might spin it off: https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21126540/spacex-starlink-i.. https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21126540/spacex-starlink-i.... A day or two after that statement Elon said that the amount they were thinking of spinning it off right now is "0". PS. Your use of "us" makes me think you might be an insider, I'm definitely not, but as an outsider it looks like SpaceX has a pretty good chance of pulling this off.