I think the thing that a lot of people are still stuck at is the NASA attitude of "we've spent a lot of money on this already, we Need to make sure it works first try".

Whereas SpaceX is more like Kerbal Space Program in that if it blows up, at least you're having fun.

And while they had some failures early on with their early rockets, the Falcon 9 is now a very reliable craft that's done dozens of successful missions, successful recoveries (which I think they still consider a bonus rather than a goal) and re-uses, and a streamlined launch process, which has become more economic - and possibly profitable - over time.

I will add "possibly" profitable though, given that it feels like the majority of their launches is for their own Starlink project, which is costing them billions - but it's a project to ensure use and reuse of their rockets, instead of the company going stale waiting for customers.