When I used to teach English at university, I was sure to leave an impression on my students on their first day of class. I'd tell them that as Japanese speakers, they could only speak with a mere 130 million people. But if they could learn English, they would be able to communicate with 500 million to 1 billion people. This is why you need to learn English, I told them. Heads invariably nodded, and students turned to each other and exclaimed "naruhodo!" (Indeed!). I had caught their attention.
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The average person could never communicate with 130 million people, let alone 1 billion. Most people have meaningful interaction with only a few hundred. Perhaps thousands in an entire lifetime. You may reach millions via media such as TV or Twitter, but if one-way communication is all you're after, you could get a translator to do that for you. Even Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Che Guevara had people translating their message throughout the world via the media.
But one thing I learned as a teacher was that students were only as good as I expected them to be. If I expected them to do nothing, they would do nothing. Expect them to scale Mount Everest, however, and they would try, even with no specialized climbing skills. And they would get frostbite trying.