The security community was up in arms over the revelations of the NSA s ability to collect and store millions of cell phone records. Some of the larger Internet companies, who found themselves in the middle of many of the stories about PRISM and other capabilities, started to respond. There was no way of knowing whether all of these technologies and changes would ve come to pass without the Snowden leaks; some of them almost certainly would have. But there’s no question that the leaked documents, the avalanche of news stories and the massive backlash that followed contributed to the innovation that has followed.
Source: https://threatpost.com/in-the-wake-of-the-snowden-revelations-a-wave-of-innovation/107601/