Talented people being paid a lot of money to do something of little value (versus other cheaper approaches) is not a positive. As a business, the goal is to not to employ talented people but to make money. If the former doesn't help the later then that's okay.

Useful people will stick around to do what needs doing. Most of them will also be talented.

What talent is anyone developing with third party api glue work? Third party api talent. Spend years in shops that buy rather than build and you will have a major skill deficit when you move on and want to do more in your career. If a manager fails to develop actual talent, that manager deserves the outcome.

>Spend years in shops that buy rather than build and you will have a major skill deficit when you move on and want to do more in your career.

That's not the fault of the company or the manager but the employee for staying in a job that does not line up with their long term career prospects. You cannot expect anyone to care about you except yourself. If they do then that's nice but don't expect it.

>If a manager fails to develop actual talent, that manager deserves the outcome.

You mean a successful company and stock options they can buy a house with?

If a business succeeds then it can use it's series B/C funding to buy better talent. Expensive to do but by then money is a lot less tight.

You seem to think that there was a better use of technology than what was done in this case. I argue that there wasn't and that they did the best possible thing they could do with tech resources. The business failed despite the tech decisions. Now, the developers have something to show for their work, and valuable skills that others will pay to benefit by.