Boosters don’t depreciate. They are actually considered more valuable with more successful launches.
Imagine if I buy a $200,000 Lamborghini which, with regular servicing, will survive 100,000 miles.
That means for every mile I drive, not only am I paying for fuel, and insurance, and tyres, and servicing - I'm also paying, on average, $2/mile in depreciation.
And sure, the "true" value chart might not be linear. Maybe there'll be a sharp drop when the car ceases to be brand new, or a bump in value when it becomes a classic. But so long as it's worth $200k at 0 miles and $0 at 100k miles, the average cost of a mile must be $2.
It’s as if your car gained value with every mile driven.
But even then, it doesn't change that the booster has a maximum lifespan and/or eventually increasing repair and therefore depreciation - we are working on an amortized basis.
That used to be true. It no longer is.
We don't know what the maximum lifespan of these boosters are. There are workhorses that have over 20 launches under their belt, and no sign of deterioration. Obviously at some point something will give, but we're not there yet.
I don't think that's true. All of the F9 failures[1] have been due to the 2nd stage. And that's new every time.
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1. CRS-7, AMOS-6, and Starlink 9-3
Do we have anything proving this besides the self-serving word of a privately owned company?
I'm not saying it's false, I have no idea either. But there's a lot of highly specific speculation going on here, based on no reliable source.