Space Debris: Is It a Crisis?

One question I’ve been wondering about (and please hear me out because this is an honest question and I know nothing about this area.)

SpaceX’s Starship is being built based on the (business) principle that extremely low cost-to-orbit will be a good business, because it will unlock a huge market for launches. Some tiny fraction of these launches will probably go beyond Earth’s orbit. A much larger fraction (eg Starlink) will be aimed at low orbits where Kessler Syndrome can be avoided (unless there are major accidents.) But at least some of that new mass is going to wind up in higher orbits where Kessler syndrome is already a risk, and this new mass will obviously increase the risk of a disaster. And so far I’m only talking about Starship and SpaceX, not its competitors.

My question is: is there a world where Starship is a viable economic project — meaning its investment pays back at the rate SpaceX is betting on — but where it does not also dramatically increase the risk of disaster? And what exactly does the model of “successful Starship / no Kessler syndrome” look like in terms of future launches? Has anyone modeled this?

I would imagine the incentives being aligned (SX can’t make full economic and cultural Starship ROI if there is a planetsized wall of debris they can’t fly through) means that there will be multiple independent overlapping checks both private and government for each launch mission to ensure that it doesn’t become worse.

SpaceX stands to lose just as much as the rest of us if they fuck this up, possibly more.