The scale that these companies operate on requires huge innovations in software engineering and computer science. Think about all the distributed systems that have come out of places like Facebook and Google over the last 2 decades.
> I don't think it's created anywhere near the amount of value that's come out of e.g. space race
The space race gave us a lot of tangible, physics/materials/hard-engineering related tech. Software gives us a lot of internet infrastructure, communications, algorithms, etc. that are incredibly useful for the average consumer. Lots of people in this thread complaining about the negative value of ads and such, but the communications infrastructure, knowledge sharing, social change due to marginalized people being able to communicate things far and wide ... there's a lot of intangible benefits that have come as a direct result of focusing heavily on consumer internet.
That’s like saying the Cook maybe fat and morbidly obese but look at how efficiently he consumes such a large number of calories every day.