This has worked with chat apps and other kinds of community-based social networks for ages, where the promise that after you've grown large, you'll figure out a

This has worked with chat apps and other kinds of community-based social networks for ages, where the promise that after you've grown large, you'll figure out a way to monetize later. What's remarkable is Jet was able to pull this off by being in meatspace, by acting as a VC-subsidized arbitrage broker for consumer products, hoping to get enough mindshare to be considered more of a threat than a nuisance so it can get bought out. It worked!