[ryandrake]

Answering that would require speculation, since I own no company and have no current plans to "release something" of my own any time soon. I suppose, should I one day decide to hang my shingle out there and sell a product, I would aim to make it of sufficient quality and usefulness so as to not require scummy "link building" to sell it.

[lgl]

So... the good old "if you build it, they will come" approach. The level of naiveness in your comment is off the charts.

[ivm]

Well, it probably worked in 2007.

[ivm]

It's not enough to be "useful", you need to work on visibility (marketing, SEO). You need to reach the owners of the sites where your potential customers are hanging out and ask them to link to your useful product. This way you will get better positions in search results and more traffic to your site.

There's nothing "scammy" in this kind of outreach unless you're building links for a scam.