>>149892792
>covering their ass
Are you familiar with how Stan Lee wrote? He wanted Peter to be an everyman, so getting money through a patent or an entertainment gig can't happen, realism be damned.
But, hey, if you want it to be realistic, you can just say that they were underwhelmed because they'd seen Paste-Pot Pete's much more impressive adhesive and wanted to go for that. Or Zemo's Adhesive X.