The advancement of science is of quite significant benefit to humankind in the long run and it affects everybody in a way a brand product implementing a known design does not. In fact, if it staves off extinction, even if it only matters in the far far future, the number of people affected could well be more than the one hundred billion who have lived on earth for the past 40,000 years.

I totally agree. WhatsApp right now affects a lot of people a little. SpaceX right now affects small amount of people a lot, but if that satellite project pans out this will turn into affecting a lot of people greatly. SpaceX has a much, much bigger prospect for benefiting humanity than WhatsApp can dream of.