This business model reminds me of those fly-by-night mobile subscription services from the early 2000s. The ones who'd make you think you were buying a single ringtone, and the next thing you knew, you'd been surreptitiously signed up for a $29.99/month subscription.

I remember evaluating the books for one of those companies back in the day. It was wildly successful at the surface level. But if you dipped below the surface, you noticed that its biggest strategic weakness was "Breakage," i.e., the rate at which people eventually discovered they'd been duped and then cancelled their subscriptions. It turned out that the average subscription lasted 2 to 3 months, and nobody kept a subscription longer than 5 months. This basically meant that the company's entire business model was predicated on scamming new users at a rate quicker than its existing users could break away. While not a Ponzi scheme in the true sense, the model operates on a similar assumption. But the assumption is not sustainable in the long run.

I look at a lot of companies these days -- especially all the companies in the pop-up sale business, the subscription-box business, etc., and wonder how many are following this playbook. And I wonder why VCs keep backing them. Obviously it's a fantastic way to earn tremendous growth up front. And, while the getting lasts, the getting is pretty darned good. But it's sad to think that legitimate startups may get turned down, or underfunded, for the quick buck and easy exit that can be made on this crap.