SpaceX Dragon XL

[Vultur]

Personally, I doubt they'd save any money dropping DXL in favour of SS.

I think that strongly depends on how quickly SpaceX transitions from Falcon to Starship. After the ISS goes,  Dragon XL may well be the only commitment SpaceX has that requires Falcon. The cost of Dragon XL might be a lot higher if it has to support the entire Falcon infrastructure by itself.

I don't think any of the commercial stations being planned are envisioning the visiting spacecraft being Starship. They are all showing Dragon in their illustrations. That means Falcon-9. IF this remains the case, 2 things happen: (1) Crew Dragon and (2) a modified XL (Progress replacement) will share the cost.

I just don't think SpaceX will want to maintain the entire Falcon infrastructure for such a low flight rate. Government contracts they're already committed to is one thing, but I don't see what carrot or stick commercial station companies could offer to convince SpaceX to keep Falcon/Dragon around. I think SpaceX would say "use Starship or find another provider" (and possibly offer a long loiter Starship as a competitor).

This only matters when/if crew Starship is ready, but five years is a long time in SpaceX development terms. They have to keep Falcon/Dragon until ISS end of life, but after that?

Satellite design, construction and certification is a VERY long, multi year process. There are many, many DOD, multinational  and commercial spacecraft in that pipeline now. It may very well be SpaceX's intention to eventually retire the Falcon LVs but not before the market for satellites has made the switch to Starship.

I'm not sure anymore. Starlink is already the majority of satellite launches. Now SpaceX is planning a vastly larger data center constellation. I am not sure they expect external commercial satellite launch to be a very meaningful part of their business going forward.

DoD, however, is another case. They need to keep good relationships with government customers.