> Firstly, it would be wildly inefficient, just due to the unavoidable delay both ways
The point I was thinking about is a scenario where Starlink satellites communicate with each other via laser (already starting to happen), and then communicate with the end user via the satellite over them. Because we're talking about speed-of-light transmission between sats, data in the Starlink network can theoretically cover "ground" (aka miles/km) faster than ground-based ISPs.
Then it makes sense to deploy servers within that network so that two Starlink users can have extremely low latency from user to server to other user (the slowest part being the earth to sat latencies, one for each user).
The point I was thinking about is a scenario where Starlink satellites communicate with each other via laser (already starting to happen), and then communicate with the end user via the satellite over them. Because we're talking about speed-of-light transmission between sats, data in the Starlink network can theoretically cover "ground" (aka miles/km) faster than ground-based ISPs.
Then it makes sense to deploy servers within that network so that two Starlink users can have extremely low latency from user to server to other user (the slowest part being the earth to sat latencies, one for each user).