I like the phrase "financial gravity" as a way to frame the phenomenon in a way that avoids the darker (and broader) connotations of "corruption". At Humanitix we spend a lot of time thinking about this, and have much respect for the likes of Patagonia, Thank You, and others. We took the "charity path" so to speak, which has been both challenging and rewarding. Watching OpenAI's charity orbit decay into IPO fireball has been somewhat depressing, but I think it highlights one of the keys to our own continued success in resisting the pull; we don't need much in the way "capital" from the "ism". We don't need to build data centres, or produce and warehouse goods.
Having said that I don't mean it to undermine your points of "strong ethos". Simply existing in the tech world as a charity takes great strength of ethos. Try explaining to AWS that you should be eligible for "start up credits", but no, you don't have "investors" to prove you're going to the moon.
So I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising that so few other companies have tried low-overhead tech start ups as charities. The ecosystem works against it in many ways, but it has become one of our missions to prove that it can work as a business model.
Anyway, thanks for the book (and this thread). I'll be passing it around on the work Slack.