Oppressive governments that don't like the internet aren't going to just allow the transceivers. They need line of sight to the sky and even if you hide them, detecting them would be trivial. Super rural areas and 3rd world areas have their own set of problems. I'm thinking of the OLPC type issues here. I'm all for spreading knowledge, but these areas have far bigger issues than internet access.
Personally, I view this as just another bulldozing a place of nature to build a hospital or something like that. Is that hospital useful? Undoubtedly. Is it worth having one less place of nature? Debatable.
The only difference is scale. We're talking about the destruction of a place of nature for the entire world. Over dramatized? I don't think so- there are many examples of people talking about looking up at the stars in wonderment, driving them to great things. Maybe that will still happen when there are thousands of satellites streaming by, but nobody has that foresight.
Sure he cooks on a fire because it's practical. You don't need to fetch gas/fuel for your stove. Now with Starlink you won't need to go to town once a week to check your bitcoin transactions.
> Too poor to make stove out of bricks
> Goes spend full day per week to go an check on their bitcoin transactions
Uh, are you sure you have a grounded understanding of what rural poverty means?