Part of me hates the spammers that do this, creating nothing of real value for anyone but their own wallets, but another part of me, the grown-up, cynical part,

Part of me hates the spammers that do this, creating nothing of real value for anyone but their own wallets, but another part of me, the grown-up, cynical part, figures that what they're doing is smart as hell: they're selling shovels. Startups come and go in the thousands nowadays. What could possibly be smarter than sucking them ALL dry, instead of trying to be a profitless, slave-to-the-VC startup themselves?