Pump and dump of early customers?

Hi All,

I am what one would call a lurker in this community for a long time ( since 2017 ), I have been noticing a trend if you may by Indie-hackers which I call the pump and dump scheme now as I have seen this play in some of the "successful" indie projects.

The tactic is kinda simple - attract early customers with fun story and value prop > most customers that believe in your vision and mission back you > sell Lifetime deals or whatever is needed to get to a certain MRR > exit the company > company that buys the product kills pricing and early supporters get mad > founder then writes book or AMA or becomes twitter famous for "exiting". I have even seen some founders sell extremely lucrative deals to early customers just to them kinda screw them over.

Different founders have different objectives but are we as a community doing the right thing by amplifying their voice and achievements?

How can we shine the spotlight on better success stories?

This again brings about the question of what does success mean ?

Would love to hear some thoughts.

PS: I am not against this strategy, seems like a legit way to make a quick buck. Though ethically I think it's bad for the early customers that support the founder.