This is kind of what Apple has always done: bring a new (cool) thing to the consumer, even if it isn't as good as it sounds. But so far they seem to catch up and make it good after a couple of iterations.
And in this case it puts that checkbox in the consumer's mind, so other manufacturers will probably put some effort into matching or exceeding it.
If I were planning on being in places with no coverage and some risk, I would buy one of the relatively inexpensive Garmin satellite comm/safety devices. But most normal, non-wilderness-adventure people are not going to do that. Maybe this Apple feature will save a few people.
Apple used to wait for a good implementation to jump on the bandwagon. Now we have all the makers throwing uncooked spaghetti at the wall, and so many recent Apple headline feature are kinda half-assed (including the other Watch “leaps” like ecg or blood oxygen levels which are just not there yet and might never be)
I’d put it in the same bin as lidar: it’s cool they got something working at all in such a constrained package. Hopefully it will become better/more generally useful within a decade.
(nowadays satellite phones or portable modems are actually pretty small, capable, and not that expensive. Consumer level access is already a thing in that regard)