The ESA spends years, often over a decade, overengineering and certifying components. By the time they're ready for production, the private sector is already a generation or two ahead.
I have no idea how you came up with this idiotic notion. Computers chips need to be hardened. They basically have to be redesigned so that radiation in space does not randomly flip bits. Every space agency takes existing chips and spends years to make them space ready. ESA/NASA are not purposefully delaying components for no reason.
A Starlink satellite can undergo a complete product lifecycle, from design proposal to end of life, in the time it takes the ESA to certify a single component, let alone a complete product.
A Starlink satellite can fail because 1) it's a private company 2) There are many satellites. 3) ESA/NASA projects like the James Webb cannot be serviced.
I really don't believe the ESA has the capacity to move past this either because it's bound by politics. What I mean by that is, you're never going to get out of the trap of having to design and build everything across 20 (or whatever it is) different member states, and all the logistical baggage that drags along with it. NASA has a similar constraint.
The logistical baggage as you call it is making sure something works for years and decades without failing. 1 or 2 Starlink satellites fail every day. Every day.
The private sector only has one real constraint: Whatever is good enough to meet all mission parameters with near 100% degree of certainty.
1 or 2 Starlink satellites fail every day. Every day. Please describe how that is "good enoug" when there is only 1 Hubble, 1 James Webb, etc.
This is exactly why NASA, ESA, JAXA, and many other government space entities end up contracting with the American private sector rather than rely entirely on their own designs.
I fail to see how many telescopes Space X has made.
