> The same could be said for most/all startups. They all can be distilled into some simple implementation.

Hard disagree. There are lots of niches and businesses are complex. If everything was CRUD the people who are using no-code app builders would win against the ones who code, which hasn’t happened despite continuous attempts for 20-or-so years.

Now, I don’t know if GP is right, but assuming that it’s true (many prompt wrapping startups), then yes absolutely they are completely owned if they sit on top of an existing “platform” which can see everything they’re doing. That’s much worse even than selling IaaS on top of aws.

It was the same during the blockchain hype peak – you’d see lots of startups that forked some existing project and replaced the name of a token, and created a website to drive hype.