I'm not sure what wasting money you're talking about. They don't need to do refueling and going to Mars to be highly profitable even without that, their Starshi

I'm not sure what wasting money you're talking about. They don't need to do refueling and going to Mars to be highly profitable even without that, their Starship prototypes are so cheap ($10-$20M estimated by some people), they can afford to just throw them out or fly them in return for a little data. Just getting high speed low latency internet for $100 for everybody in the world is a huge thing (or slower internet for lower price in the future), and Starship will make that possible. Regarding the amount of years they need for testing, building flying a new prototype every week is crazy. If you have that manufacturing capability, it's not hard to imagine that SpaceX can improve on the design faster than any other company.