‘As many people know Elon recently said that: “If we do an ocean landing (for testing purposes), the performance hit is actually quite small, maybe in the order of 15 percent. If we do a return to launch site landing, it’s probably double that, it’s more like a 30 percent hit (i.e., 30 percent of payload lost).”’
$10,000 per pound to go to orbit. 15% to 30% of that payload revenue is lost so you can land on an ocean platform or land. Few, if any, companies can afford that magnitude hit to the profit margin.
I can’t see where that could possibly make economic sense. Wings or parachutes would seem to continue to make the most sense.
Once the “gee-whiz” factor wears off, you’re stuck paying that premium forever.