How would that be hard to monetize? You literally just charge people for internet access.
* HFT firms will pay for it if the latency is lower
* Online gamers that play with other people around the globe would also probably be willing to pay to get their ping down.
* Maybe they could have a LEO CDN.
* People like me who travel a lot would be willing to pay for it. It would be especially sweet if I could somehow ditch my phone plan and just have global satellite coverage and use VOIP via Google Voice or something.
Because HFT firms can pay for a standard StarLink and get the same results. There are few HFT customers and you have to offer them something that can't get from your consumer service if you want them to pay commensurate to the value provided.
Your other points have nothing to do with my HFT specific comment.
It's very likely that standard Starlink plans will downlink traffic as close to the customer as possible to reduce lateral utilization, but HFT needs to route traffic on the constellation all the way across the Atlantic.
StarLink doesn't exist yet, and when it does, it doesn't seem unreasonable to think that two satellite constellation providers could serve the HFT market and both be profitable.
Still totally missing the point. You have to offer something extra to the HFT traders to sell them a $10000/month plan instead of a $49.99 plan. Discriminate on latency somehow for their traffic. Prioritize packets, prefer shortest links over most expedient links, minimize hops. Otherwise if they will just buy your standard plan and you don't monetize them effectively.
... They're just numbers picked out of the air for one last illustrative attempt to explain why you need something special to entice HFTs to pony up way more than a standard internet plan so you can monetize them effectively.
The point is that HFTs aren't going to be ponying up "way more"...
It's going to be a bit more, for a bit better latency.
Your comments are predicated on the assumption that this internet service is going to be significantly more expensive than existing fiber subscriptions, and therefore needs many benefits to outweigh the increased cost. But I have seen no reason to believe that this will be the case. Every statement I've seen indicates that these services will be quite competitive on price.
* HFT firms will pay for it if the latency is lower
* Online gamers that play with other people around the globe would also probably be willing to pay to get their ping down.
* Maybe they could have a LEO CDN.
* People like me who travel a lot would be willing to pay for it. It would be especially sweet if I could somehow ditch my phone plan and just have global satellite coverage and use VOIP via Google Voice or something.