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This is normal and by design. They fly super low, way in the upper atmosphere. This means they can’t stay up there for more than 3-4 years. It’s partly to reduce latency, but more likely it’s just a part of the trick to keep SpaceX in business. Starlink is their biggest customer, a lot of the launches are just for Starlink. And they need to keep on launching, otherwise the network will fail. This means Musk can pump the huge pool of investment money from Starlink straight into SpaceX. This keeps them in business to keep funnelling money from taxpayers in the form of NASA grants into SpaceX. Musk then used that SpaceX money to invest in xAI, which was used to absorb a lot of the debt created by buying Twitter.
All just a scam, pumping money around to keep filling their pockets.
I’m with you on suspecting it’s a scam, but it’s also understandable. Low earth orbit is so much cheaper than higher orbits. Regularly launching small, low earth orbit satellites is really economical, and takes care of disposal too so requires very little on-board capabilities. University researchers and amateur radio folk have been doing that for decades because it’s cheap and practical - starlink just upped the scale.
I’m actually glad his garbage is low enough that when whatever bubble pops or he gets bored, they won’t contribute to orbital debris.
There are now one to two Starlink satellites falling back to Earth each day, burning up in the atmosphere with consequences not fully understood.
Wait, what?!
I mean it doesn’t take an expert to understand that putting cloud of metal and rare earthes into the upper atmosphere is probably not the best of things to do
1.7 - 3.4 million dollars destroyed each day
Drop in the bucket for these guys. Just bill the customer.