I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Selling to consumers means selling to many more customers for much smaller margins. And the selling is much less personal. And consumers are spending their own money, not from a corporate budget.

So it seems pretty different to me. Or am I misunderstanding you?

"It seems like a new old boys' club scratching each other's backs and gaming the system."

Still not sure what you mean. If a startup's main customers are consumers, they can't make sales by having connections. Although if it's one of those where, effectively, the consumers are the product and advertisers are the customers, then I can imagine some of that back-scratching going on between companies.