ELI5 - why do satellites need to be bright? Do they have some kind of lights? Can’t they just be dark and beam internet around?

Yea, but the northeast, especially major cities like NYC, Boston, and Philly, does have better public transit than a lot of the US. I know it still sucks overall (and don’t get me going about the costs), but a lot of the infrastructure was built during the car boom. People do like cars, and they make sense for most of America given how much sprawl we have.

Agreed. Reddit became horrible once everyone got on it.

Yea, that only works for cities. America will still need tons of cars for everywhere that isn’t a city. It’s a very low density country, all things considered.