You can provide high bandwidth low latency access to the internet in places where not even 1.3B fiber subsidy’s won’t reach or you can build few hundred miles more fiber to mostly nowhere for the same price.

The fact is, starlink is the absolute best option in quite a few places - sparsely populated, far from dense urban areas. This is actually the best way to spend government money for that purpose even if it ends up in subsidizing terminal purchases.