That requirement could have come from the government. It's not a crazy thing to ask for when you're launching literally hundreds of satellites into LEO. Plus,

That requirement could have come from the government. It's not a crazy thing to ask for when you're launching literally hundreds of satellites into LEO. Plus, the last thing SpaceX wants is a news story about killer satellites raining debris on innocent citizens. Remember that each satellite launched has to be deorbited eventually, so if they're launching dozens of sats per month they'll eventually be deorbiting dozens of sats per month. If they don't fully burn up each one will have a chance of hitting someone. Sure the chance may be very small, but when you're rolling the dice dozens or hundreds of times per month eventually you're going to land on snake eyes.