There are many things which the US brought into being, which could not have been achieved commercially, as the ROI is too far away and dilute. The military has long term objectives and spending priority like nothing else -- except perhaps NASA in the 1950-1970 period, and even that was tied up with the space race and the military. We certainly would not have GPS, 20cm satellite imaging and many other things.

Culturally, humans are short term focused. It takes a big abstraction tied to real core needs to get us to do anything long term. God(s), the tribe, survival, basically sex and death.

Ad tech is about tomorrow. Surveillance+capitalism was our only long term bet of late, but I think we're pivoting to systematic mass disinformation.