"If they had something working they wouldn't need to raise money" is another way of saying that old chestnut "build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door"... which simply isn't true. A nice, romantic, idealistic concept that's never been "reality".
In the real world it takes MONEY to make things happen.
Lots of people have good ideas: ideas are a dime a dozen, and many even have "prototypes" but they still don't ever get anywhere (this could prove true for MaidSafe too, of course). Execution & Implementation (and iterate, iterate, iterate) is all that matters.
So, if there are other companies in Maid's space, let's hear about it. I've never heard of anyone else doing this, and unless they really exist, anyone can say anything. Vaporware isn't real.
Also MaidSafe has patents, I believe? Which they've said they'll only use defensively, but point is THEY have 'em. That ain't cheap (I suspect a lot of the friend and family seed money went into costs for lining this up, getting ducks in a row...)
And also, just like bitcoin, looks to me like first mover advantage and network effect will play a big role in this space too.
Again, anyway, I don't wanna debate this here really. If y'all don't like what you see with MaidSafe WTF are you doing here? If you're disappointed with what you're seeing after you bought into the IPO, just sell the interim token coins off, take your loss, and STFU... right?
Again, again (LOL) I'm personally just gonna tuck away this little pile of safecoins from my measley little 1 BTC investment that I put into this, and wait to see what happens. If someone put too much money into this longshot, clearly high risk speculative investment, and now regrets it, who's fault is that? If you can't afford to lose $500 on something like this, ya shouldn't have bought it... so, who's fault, again?
Srsly........ LOL