These are good points, especially the comparison with the other marketplaces, along with more informed breakdown of what you guys offer.

I think the idea is novel (at least it is to me, I haven't seen another effort like it yet other than the open collective idea I mentioned earlier), and I think it's really interesting.

Maybe I can try and describe the nagging feeling better:

tldr - It feels like Assembly makes it easier for startups to be a machine with people-shaped cogs. I might also be completely wrong, and that is actually the better way to go (or the path that people will be happy to travel once they discover assembly)

It feels like assembly is deconstructing the startup model (which is probably good and bad, maybe mostly good):

   - (+/- technical) founder => person with idea

   - initial dev team => contributors

   - VC  => Assembly (w/ revenue share instead of equity)

But I think that something gets lost in that deconstruction. The founders become "just" people with ideas, and not people who grew, nurtured and fostered a company/entity. I realize they are the core team, but learning all the accounting, finances, legal, and operating costs bits are kind of valuable to a budding founder. I may even go as far as to say that a person with an idea != a founder specifically because of the transformation that happens from having to deal with all that administration (otherwise known as running a company).

Similarly for the dev team, they're invested... but I don't think they're as invested as they could be, or as part of the living breathing entity (figuratively) that is the company -- it's almost like being a freelancer/contract worker (more the disenfranchisement that might occur, I think, less the health benefits/other usual problems)

And while the marketplace itself (Assembly) takes on quite a fair bit of risk in hosting the sites and providing all those services for free... I can't help but feel like the profit they may make comes at the cost of stunting the growth of a founder and her/his development team.

If I could put it in a sentence, I might say that this system makes it easier to treat people as cogs.

On the flip side, this could be a completely inane over-reaction, I may be on the wrong side of a trend that is about to be huge, and streamline startup culture in a big way.