I think I'll have to disagree with you here. The way I understood history, "regulation and social factors" only happened because an alternative to whale oil was found. To an arguably large degree, social progress is a consequence of technological breakthroughs.

In general, and simplifying the dynamics a bit, I'd say this: what happens in a society is constrained to what makes economic sense. You can attempt change (e.g. get whaling banned), but you will not succeed when the economic pressures go strongly against you (e.g. there's no substitute for whale oil and demand is large, so regulations will not happen because of a combination of lobbying and international competition). Your society is always limited to what economics allow, and the way you reshape that economic landscape is through technology. You find substitute for whaling oil. Or a better fuel than wood. Or (upcoming invention) develop lab-grown meat that's competitive to regular one - I bet that vegans will think it was their activism that achieved a future without factory farming, but the way I see it, once we crack lab-grown meat, factory farming will be gone in a blink of an eye.

Another example I like: there were many attempts at reforming the Catholic church in the past, but the one that succeeded happened after the printing press was invented, which let reformatist ideas spread far and wide before the church could contain them.