[roc]

I've never dealt with VCs from 'the inside', so it's certainly possible they're just as slimy. I suspect they aren't, because there's no distribution choke point as there is (was) in music, so they can't effectively enforce shenanigans. (They also don't lobby nearly as much, get weasel-words inserted into legislation on the sly, nor have they been found guilty of horiztonal collusion and anticompetitive practices. several times)

But even if they were, equivocation doesn't validate the correctness of either market. And the existence of contracts certainly don't somehow validate the way things work.