not everyone has the tens of millions necessary to start a cloud mining business
Then dont, and dont pretend that you did.
make it profitable, transparent, compliant and user friendly all at the same time.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but none of the existing cloud mining services has all these qualities at the same time.
You are wrong, if you ignore the nonsensical criteria like 'profitable'. From a credibility pov, from their inception at least cryptx, cex.io, AMhash, Kncloud and Hashnest fulfilled all or nearly all my criteria. Yes, they had serious funding,
because thats the only way you can start a competitive cloud mining operation. The big, established miners suffer from a severe lack of profitability for the end users.
Generally the legitimate players cant offer anything like the low prices the ponzi's do, because they actually have hardware to write off, they actually have electricity costs and overhead costs. That is why they tend to be (considerably) more expensive. Ponzi's like yours that just pretend to have hashrate can sell at any arbitrary price, its just the lower the price, the quicker it will collapse.
One could go as far as saying that they wouldn't even need to plug in their machines or even own any machines, as clients barely break-even on their purchase, over periods exceeding 6-8 months. Where exactly is the fairness in that?
The fairness lies in the fact that in 6-8 months, they will not have run away with their customer funds.
You will.