SpaceX files with the FCC to offer Web access worldwide via satelite

It's like a truck company going into the shipping business. If the shipping business succeeds, they increase demand for their trucks and at the same time, have cash flow to fund the truck development.

But the truck company's actual goal is to use the trucks to haul dirt to fill in the ocean. Filling in the ocean doesn't have an ROI for decades, so the truck company needs a profitable business to help fund it.

SpaceX will use its rockets to raise a low-Earth orbit satellite network that would provide low-latency, high bandwidth Internet connectivity globally. The profit from that business would, in theory, fund development of the space ships, and, the development of a human colony on Mars.