You can build far more and far larger telescopes on the ground than you can in space, for the same money.
There's the Vera C. Rubin observatory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_C._Rubin_Observatory https://www.lsst.org/
> NASA has been tasked by the US Congress with detecting and cataloging 90% of the NEO population of size 140 meters or greater.[68] LSST, by itself, is estimated to detect 62% of such objects,[69] and according to the National Academy of Sciences, extending its survey from ten years to twelve would be the most cost-effective way of finishing the task.[70]
https://www.universetoday.com/153620/nasas-new-asteroid-impa...
> The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will be a powerful tool for detecting NEAs. It’ll image each area of the sky about 1000 times in its ten-year survey. And it’ll do so with a powerful 3,200-megapixel camera. The Rubin will image the entire visible sky every two nights, and Asteroids will have nowhere to hide.
And there's NEO Surveyor which is a satelite which does exactly that as well from orbit to get full coverage.
https://www.universetoday.com/151539/nasa-has-approved-a-spa...
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-approves-asteroid-hunting-...
Finding an Internet connection on the market in the U.S. isn't equitable at all. Market consolidation and disparate regulations across the country are creating artificial scarcity which has little to do with the geography. That's just the U.S.
Then there's outside of the U.S. which is a wholly different ballgame. This is a U.S. enterprise providing access to the Internet to millions in other sovereign countries. Which doesn't sit well strategically with local stakeholders. India already has already refused giving a commercial license to Starlink.
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/1/5/elon-musks-starli...
When we're talking "rural" areas outside of the Western countries, we're discussing areas which just don't have same level of development or wealth. Starlink costs 499 USD for equipment + 99 USD per month for a subscription. The average monthly salary in India was about 430 USD; add to that the urban-rural wage gap and you'll quickly conclude that Internet access via satellite is prohibitively expensive in India for millions.
And that's discounting the fact that hundreds of millions of people in these rural areas don't have proper access to the electricity grid to begin with.
It's not just India, is many other regions in the world where - unlike the U.S. or Europe - the economics, the lack of infrastructure or the politics just aren't favorable to ventures like this.
Sure, all of this might and likely will change and the next decade or two. But that's a big gamble to make. In the mean time, Starlink's profitability remains a large question mark.
You have to question whether Starlink is ultimately just playing a home match on Western markets where Internet access has become a commodity that fits in larger strategic interests of large capital investments. Starlink is a commercial venture after all, it only keeps winning if it gets to dot the roofs of millions with dishes. It's business model isn't fundamentally different from ground-based ISP's in that regard.
Perception matters, and regardless of how you spin this: outside of this online bubble, a large portion of humanity simply doesn't take kindly to the appropriation of a common good such as the night sky for profiteering.
Are you suggesting that most people don't think that businesses that use public assets like the sky shouldn't be able to make a profit?
Airlines, Airports, Cell Phone companies that use public radio waves, Farms that take water from public water ways, factories that cause noise and light pollution.
Most people don't want those companies to exist?
There was some discussion (Ars Technica maybe?) about why the Webb telescope took so long and was so expensive -- basically because heavy launch is (was?) so expensive, they needed to contort to fit everything in one payload (telescoping heat shield etc). But if you could do 10 launches for the same cost, you could iterate on the satellite much more easily, and the total cost to build it would be much less. (Waterfall vs. agile, to analogize with software development.)
But ultimately prices will have to drop far more than that to be cheaper to build an orbiting telescope rather than one on the ground for most requirements.
Planet have shown that for earth observation constellations are not only possible but cost affective.
Now imagin if SpaceX stuck a camera/telescope facing outwards on even 10% of their constellation. With modern ML image proccing pipelines I could see that providing us with very valuable additional astroid detection.
I really hope to see SpaceX “renting” space on some of their constellation for uses such at this.