That’s not how these businesses are best built. Instead, the founders tend to look at what an industry should be doing, but due to incumbent politics hasn’t been able to. You build the thing from the outside, bypassing those politics. Once you have it, you’re parachuted in.

> it's really just scamming by another name

There is plenty of this in bullshit-product companies, too. At the end of the day, a bolt-on exit strategy is absolutely legitimate. Most people can’t execute on it because it requires understanding both the economic niche and high-level corporate politics at a few major players. So there is probably more noise in feature-only startups than in the broader startup ecosystem. But again, most startups fail for good reason.