There is a cohort of astronomers that don't want earths orbit filled with humans. It's sort of a naturalistic argument, effectively that they will lose their ability to take photos of what they want. On the margin, it's good for people like SpaceX to try and do what they can to minimize negative externalities.

But I think that we as a race should not cater to them for a few reasons:

1) there is no precident for "owning" the sky above you to infinity, it's an odd position legally

2) there is another cohort of people that want to expand consciousness who are impeded by this NIMOP (Not In My Orbital Plane) crowd. We can fit a quadrillion humans comfortably on rotating space habitats. This seems like a better goal under most moral systems than retaining the right to take pretty pictures.

3) any loss of "science" due to the loss of ground based sensors would be more than offset by having a robust space presence.

I am not an astronomer, but I have an idea and maybe folks could tell me if this makes sense. AFAIK some astronomers use digital optics and a computer with their telescopes. For those people, perhaps a solution would be to have software that identifies the satellites, then learns to "ignore" them. The satellites are moving relative to the earth which suggests if you are focused on one area of space, your computer will eventually see 100% of the space. So while not perfect, you could in effect make the satellites invisible. For those using a traditional telescope this obviously would not help. Thoughts? Is this feasible today using current technology?

Both can be true. The original Starlink satellites were horrible for astronomy. Astronomers complained and Starlink implemented some fairly effective mitigation measures like a shade and less reflective routes while orbit raising.

On this, I wonder if those satellites could be equipped with some astronomical devices and grant some kind of public access? Maybe just a download link of recent raw data from an antenna.