But the “good uses” actually had been a win for small and local businesses. With too much real and fake content online for directories to be practical, lead generation sites became a successor to the yellow pages for a lot of small businesses.
Users look for a masseuse or roofer, fill out a qualifier form at a lead generation site operated by a tech company, and the business operators who may not even have a website can qualify the lead and submit a pitch.
They weren’t perfect and are still subject to abuse, but they were a working solution for a lot of people who weren’t going to (and don’t really need to) build an impressive website and marketing strategy.
But like I said, stuff happens and times change, so if that system gets tossed for the sake of all the adjacent abuse, so be it. I’m sure some new technique will fill the underlying niche.