This maybe a potential game changer for Telcos/ISPs. There is still a lot of money made in this business.
If SpaceX internet is capable of high bandwidth, no data-limit or a reasonable limit, not too crappy latency and allows me to use it everywhere, then it maybe very interesting.
Except for gaming, this offers what most people need AND you can take it with you (if the equipment to connect is reasonably mobile)!
If I can get an internet connection, that I can 'take with me' on my holidays abroad, which allows me to watch netflix and other IP TV, there is hardly a reason left for me to keep my cable subscription.
Not to mention what this will do for countries where internet access is highly monitored or otherwise hardly available. I'm guessing China is not too thrilled about this initiative.
The latency issue is an issue which will largely solve itself if the latency is not too bad. It can be worked around for most purposes. Maybe not for gaming, but the big websites will quickly adapt.
If I can choose nearly similar options, where one has a bit worse latency, but is available for me wherever I go...
Some time ago I checked the latency of websites I visit a lot. My cable connection has low latency, but obviously there many websites have high latency regardless as they are hosted on a different continent.
I'm sure the latency you get from GEO (> 240ms) is really changing your experience a bit too much. But the latency of LEO is about 40ms (says Wikipedia). That seems a lot, but if I were to visit a website on a different continent over the proposed network, some of that would be mitigated since the signal would travel via this network as well in stead of over multiple routers and connections. That part may be faster. So my overall experience may not be worse. Only sites hosted close by would have a significantly better performance.
A lot depends on the equipment needed to connect. If it is reasonably mobile they could also partner with a lot of companies, such as Amazon (whispernet globally and just one party to deal with), Netflix (Netflix boxes that don't require your own connection) etc.
If they manage to really compete, 10 billion USD is nothing. Local ISPs get bought for that amount.
There are a lot of ifs. But if they offer high bandwidth with high data limits for a competing price, this will mean for a lot of ISPs that there is a new player in town. And one that is global. If he were to sell shares in this initiative, I'd buy some.