These all seem so blatant at this point, but if the trend is moving towards early-stage/micro-investments like this, then most likely we'll be seeing lots more

These all seem so blatant at this point, but if the trend is moving towards early-stage/micro-investments like this, then most likely we'll be seeing lots more where this came from. But when YC has all the cred which serves to give a nice profile boost to YC-funded startups, what can these others offer that amounts to the same thing? There's the community, experience and hookups with further funding opportunities, but these knock-offs just seem like they're lacking in comparison to the full value proposition YC offers. I wonder how they can compensate for that...