alt Hacker NewsWhat makes it "ridiculous"? I can go outside and look at the sky for five minutes and see airplanes flying past, does that mean our air traffic is also ridiculous?
Of all the things to be outraged over... satellites provide extremely valuable services and are pretty near harmless. There's the pollution from the launches, some uncertain concern over putting materials into the upper atmosphere when they reenter, and that's about it. The thing people complain about most is that they get in the way of photographs of the starts. Which is annoying, but also seems to be easily worked around, and is pretty small potatoes compared to planet-wide communications. Your neighbor operating a leaf blower with a dirty two-stroke engine is harming you more than these satellites are.
The air traffic is a lot more guided. Airplanes don't go anywhere unless approved. Satellites are just circling in different directions and constantly crossing paths.
Luckily most sats in LEO do have maneuvering thrusters. But the fuel is very limited and the more of them are up there the more often they have to do corrections. Eventually something will have to give.