I share in this feeling @exyle on both of these points. I do think that funding an early stage project by charging users is not a sound plan. There are other options. For example, the developers couple approach a small number of whales and offer them an opportunity to invest steem for a long term percentage of the project. If I was a whale I would see the value in that investment. The developers would need to show the whale investors that they have a sound plan and good team, which would be a good exercise for their project anyway.
My suggestion would be to build a basic but solid business plan, approach some wealthy whales about seed 'venture capital' funding, offer them a decent percentage of the project for their funding, and offer the service to users for a very low initial fee (not 0%). This will do 3 things as I see it: 1. It will give them the funds to build the project, 2. Hold the developers accountable to create a solid business/service, 3. Attract a user base that give the developers the marketshare and the feedback to design the best service they can.
Once the devlopement is done the developers can charge a fee that will be in line with the return on investment of the whales and acceptable to longterm users. Perhaps this will be through SMT's.
Boy, I would love to be in on this project :)