On a related note, the "founders" participating in sites like these give a bad name to business people with legitimate biz building skills.
Also, when equity has been issued it was typically in the 10-30% range. Essentially, businesses are using this as a way to find partners - not to dupe engineers.
Thoughts?
If you don't want to spend money on your idea, chances are it is even more likely to fail than an average startup. This feels like a way to exploit talented and gullible people who want to work at startups.
EDIT: typo
In our experience, founders have spent money on their ideas. However, many bootstrapped startups (particularly the hardware engineering companies we have helped) don't have enough for talent and prototyping. When equity is issued these companies are bringing on partners, not gullible engineers. Just my two cents, please let me know if you see it differently.