Starlink isn’t the impressive part. The impressive part is that by solving reusability, SpaceX instantly outscaled the existing launch market and was forced to

Starlink isn’t the impressive part. The impressive part is that by solving reusability, SpaceX instantly outscaled the existing launch market and was forced to find ways to generate their own demand in order to maintain growth. Which goes to show that LEO is nowhere close to a mature market; in mature markets, companies don’t have to resort to these elaborate forms of vertical integration the way they do when they invent something that fundamentally changes the market faster than anyone else can adapt. By way of analogy, radio is a mature market. Maybe a little more than mature, to be honest, it’s well past its prime. In the early days of radios, you know who ran the radio stations? The companies that made radios! Because who’s going to buy a radio without a radio station to listen to? It took years for people to figure out the radio advertising business model but RCA wasn’t willing to wait that long so they just operated a bunch of radio stations as a cost center to encourage people to buy more radios. But then the market matured and the roles of “broadcasting” and “manufacturing home radios” diverged into different companies.