The same would apply for SpaceX. They could study a lot of the successful and unsuccessful things other rocket makers had made and then do better.
To illustrate the point: Google search, the last search engine. Facebook, the last social network.
The examples you cite are Internet companies. Internet companies are peculiar because they exploit the economies of scale of the Internet to primarily offer services, not goods (read physical products).
If being last mover offered an advantage to players selling goods, then Windows Phone ought to have trounced Apple iPhone and Google Android since they were a late entrant in the smartphone movement when the paradigm shifted from physical keyboards to touchscreens.