There is a long running debate between the Mars people and the space Habitat people. Zubrin vs O’Neill, Musk vs Bezos. I have thought for some time now it’s essentially futile in the commercial age - because the two camps are no longer competing for a fixed pie of launch and hardware building resources. Supply can increase to meet demand, and all the competing approaches will do to each other is help by accelerating development of the markets both need.
And consider this - Starship needs about 6 tanker refills for each ship going to Mars. Its O/F ratio is about 4, which means 69% of all the mass SpaceX will send to orbit for their Mars missions is liquid oxygen. Lunar regolith is typically about 40% oxygen by mass.
The habitat builders have always struggled to time a market to drive their projects - maybe selling vast quantities of lox to SpaceX cheaper than they can launch it themselves is the proverbial “selling blue jeans to prospectors” that can close the O’Neillian case?
No, we’re going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction.
Mass to orbit is the key metric, thereafter mass to Mars surface. The former needs to be in the megaton to orbit per year range to build a self-sustaining colony on Mars.