I think this is a bit reductive. Sure ZIRP created an environment where people could get away with trying crazy things, but there was still an expectation of growth in pursuit of some longer time-horizon market dominance. These kind of things may be more risky, but they still can be justified in the pursuit of market awareness and growth. Also, when you're building software products, there's real value to engaging the creativity of the team.
The fact that the music continued so long and led to incredible valuation inflation over the last 15 years made the excesses look a lot worse, but even in a more sane financial environment I'd argue you'd still want to do these things to be competitive in an attention-economy, just maybe not to the extremes we saw.
The fact that the music continued so long and led to incredible valuation inflation over the last 15 years made the excesses look a lot worse, but even in a more sane financial environment I'd argue you'd still want to do these things to be competitive in an attention-economy, just maybe not to the extremes we saw.