Any project with good people will make improvements that are worth adopting. However, since this is true in general - then the argument still goes back to what

Any project with good people will make improvements that are worth adopting. However, since this is true in general - then the argument still goes back to what we choose to work on. However, I'd say that trying to solve a hard problem, not photo sharing, has a higher likelihood of producing these improvements. Look at how competition in space, military, chips, etc. did this.