I think you're overestimating what it takes to catch up here. There are no contracts. If one is better than the other, people will cancel their service and switch at the drop of a hat.
For Kuiper to catch up they need to solve their launch systems gap with Starlink. I think you're underestimating how hard it is going to be for them to close that gap.
Kuiper and Blue Origin are independent companies. Amazon owns Kuiper. Amazon does not own Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos owns that independently of Amazon. Despite having some ownership in common, they are legally required to operate at arms length.
Blue Origin is two years older than SpaceX, and yet has achieved far less than SpaceX has in the same timeframe despite a two year head start. Over that timeframe, SpaceX has successfully delivered 124 Falcon 9 payloads to orbit. Blue Origin hasn't sent anything to orbit yet, New Glenn is targeted to "late 2022" but most observers think it won't launch until 2023 (or even later).
Blue Origin is the one that needs to prove itself here. SpaceX has a proven capacity to deliver payload to orbit. With Starship, that capacity is going to greatly increase. But even if Starship runs into trouble and gets delayed, they still have a proven capacity with Falcon 9 to rely on while any issues with Starship gets delayed. Blue Origin is working through the issues on New Glenn without any fallback.
They operate independently, but both are funded by bezos. They don't need to be owned by the same company. They need to both be good at their respective goals and cheap launches will follow.
But to be clear, none of this matters. The business case to sell a $1000 terminal for under $300 isn't closing. They're subsidized right now, and public perception will be very different once the real sticker shock comes in.
> They need to both be good at their respective goals and cheap launches will follow.
Is Blue Origin good at its goals? On New Glenn, which is what matters here (not New Shepard), the jury is still out. By contrast, for Falcon 9, the jury returned a verdict long ago.
> The business case to sell a $1000 terminal for under $300 isn't closing. They're subsidized right now, and public perception will be very different once the real sticker shock comes in.
They say they've been cutting the manufacturing cost from $3000 to $1500 to $1000; you are assuming they aren't going to succeed in cutting it further. Even if they can't get it all the way down to $500 (the current sticker price), if they can get it down to $600 or $700, a $100-$200 price rise for new customers caused by withdrawing the subsidy is unlikely to be a huge issue. (The $300 figure was just an aspirational goal Musk set, nobody is paying that little right now, who knows if anyone ever will.)
None other then Elon musk says they need $20-30B in investments to stay afloat recently. They are nowhere near where it needs to be for the terminal cost. The launches can be free and the business will still sink without more government subsidies.
