Nobody is going to invest in startups like that. The startups that get bought and the product shelved, those are the successes for the VCs, incubators and other

Nobody is going to invest in startups like that. The startups that get bought and the product shelved, those are the successes for the VCs, incubators and other investors. The startups that steadily build up a product with a decent user-base, eventually making a small profit after several years, these are the failures, and are subsidised by the 'successes'. The big players aren't that interested in buying products: an existing product is just baggage, and one that they are forced to maintain even more so.