> Such a business model exists and it's extremely well proven, and it powers the majority of major open source software: build a proprietary product or service, and open source any component that is more of a cost than it is a unique selling point of your system.
Sure, it is the commoditize your complement strategy [0]. But that doesn't help get complex open source products to market, it only helps with tooling.
Maybe you are right and there's no way to directly pair the freedoms of OSS with the capitalism of VC backed startup.
0: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/
Do you need a faster compiler, or a better OS, or some cluster operator just to get your widget factory working? Don't build those in house, instead find others with the same problems and create an open source project together to work on them.
But don't try to sell open source software. It's essentially impossible to do that, it has been tried time and time again and success is rare, and huge success is basically unheard of (RedHat being probably the one single exception).