This grant was originally not going to even allow satellite providers - the idea was it was going to go to hundreds of small fiber and wireless ISPs who needed the money to build infrastructure to rural areas that is not profitable on the face of it.

A one-time grant like this isn't going to make or break Starlink - they're not building anything infrastructure with the money (the satellites burn up in a few years and need to be replaced - are they going to need ongoing grants?), so basically it's just giving free money to SpaceX. Whereas if the money went to a company building fiber or wireless repeaters that money would pay itself back over and over again and the fees would just pay for maintenance

If only there was some way for the government to take the money, then just like... Directly hire qualified people to actually do it.

Maybe we could take a little money from everyone, then charge just enough to keep the system running?

I know, it's a pretty crazy idea...I mean, it would be expensive up front, but it would be way cheaper for the service. Plus, we could stop paying ISPs to pinkie promise to build out modern infrastructure or lying about serving rural areas to get grants

(Btw, the government bought out iridium, the company that does satellite phones, when they ran out of money and were days away from decommissioning the whole constellation. And they've kept it going for decades... So I bet they could tap those guys for the roadmap to a lower orbit solution... Or we could just keep it wired while we improve the tech)