I've worked for a couple startups and you're absolutely right. If you make a profit you pay taxes on that money, so startups like to spend most of the money they bring in. They also want to show revenue growth, since that's what investors like to see. You grow revenue by getting more paying customers. And you do that by doing what your customers want.
When you go public, your goal is to increase shareholder value. So you do this by reducing costs and finding ways to wring customers out of revenue. You find ways to nickle and dime customers out of revenue so much you develop an entire branch of law devoted to you suing your customers