The title (and premise) of this post are entirely based on a Bloomberg piece (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-25/boeing-ce...), with nothing but fluff added.
I don't see the value to Boeing, or its traumatized shareholders, in continuing the losses.
Starliner isn't fully reusable, so unlikely to ever be really profitable. It is a very poor start to any wider space ambitions.
If I was Boeing's CEO, I would have confidentially got the conversation rolling too. But this is off the record, deep background. No attribution on those statements, please!
Neither is Dragon. Upper stage and service module are discarded. Only the booster and the capsule are reusable.
Dragon has a more integrated design. It has a "trunk module" which is a kind of service module lite.
So presumably, Dragon is not completely reusable (the trunk is discarded), but more reusable than Starliner in that greater functionality is preserved in the reusable capsule.
If a faulty pod could be detached, the sane EVA would be to close the docking hatch, depressurise the capsule, open its side hatch, detach the pod and put it inside the capsule in a way it wouldn't bang on everything (it'd still contaminate everything with its remaining propellants), close the hatch and let it come back to Earth with the remaining functioning propulsion pods.
Quite an adventure.
Perhaps the value is to show that they can actually stick with, and follow through, on things.
If they become known for cutting-and-running, why would anyone trust them for anything?