Number of hops definitely matters more usually. For example I'm about 150 miles from Azure East US 2 (richmond, va), and at the speed of light that should be sub 2ms round trip, but actual latency to it is ~30ms. But I'm sure I'm going through dozens of switches/routers to get there. What Starlink buys you is that you get to go straight to a satellite, then a laser in a vacuum to other satellite(s) and then a ground station that's likely already at an IXP or very close to one.
Some big ISPs here refused to locally peer with some cheaper providers, so some packets to a local data centre (5 miles away) in Toronto would round trip through Chicago and back.
If they wanted a direct connection; they wanted them to pay for transit.
