Exactly! We agree here. This is why they succeeded.
And this is why the old anti-raising money arguments of J.Fried do not hold. And his "anti-evil" strategy also doesn't work here. So he picks the "no product" PR strategy (again, when Google had a full product, albeit free and competing with Campfire, it was the "evil" PR strategy).
It's a PR to stop a competing trend, a paradigm shift that sooner or later threatens his core business.
His subtext is sorta "listen, don't give them more money because it will spoil them and there will be no product."
I see no other way to start such a project than a few geeks sitting and building it, and nothing will help them more than a few months freedom from financial distractions.