It’s interesting looking at it from what startups actually do, though. Often a large amount of what a startup does is to focus on the existing investors and potential future investors/acquirers as the customers. Actually making a product or service which end-users will enjoy/value/use/whatever is almost never the actual goal and is almost never where all of the focus goes.
From that perspective, the end users get screwed, the products they buy from startups are often half-baked and over-sold and generally not that great.
But self-funded companies, or those who don’t take huge VC money, are more often focused on delighting end-user customers. They want the repeat business and word of mouth advertising from making an end-user happy. They’re not focused on being acquired.