Comment by numpad0

the real difference is cash. they can afford literally hundred launches costing billions upfront and hundreds of millions in upkeep.

the original concept arts called for lazer beam sat2sat dynamic mesh relaying packets globally. that didn't quite happen.

what did happen was sats and terminals refreshed like tech products and not like military tanks. decades old standards are slow. all their competitors usd decades old everything.

their launch count is off by two digits. like 10x by reuse and stacked 10x by cash. that amount of cash appearing from somewhere is the difference.