At the risk of repeating myself and going round in circles as Greg would suggest I will say this again. I have been in the music business for a very long time and have been exploited by promoters, agents and many other people who try to make a quick buck from dumb musicians. I know lots of other people in the music business who have similar tales of exploitation. The industry is full of creative minds who are ready to exploit any niche they find and part the unsuspecting public from their money. So the buyer beware and if it looks too good to be true it usually is principles are strongly ingrained in me. I have a rule that people pay me to hear my music not the other way around.
Now Kudos to Ron for being so up front and honest about his company and its objectives. It will remain to be seen whether his business model is worth investing in. I have no knowledge of him or his biz other than what has been said here or what I gleaned from an online search.
That said alarm bells do ring. I ask why top execs and successful producers would want to listen to and critique songs from people whose only qualification to submit is having the cash to pay for it. To me it sounds like a nice cash cow sideline earner.... nothing else. Now you know and I know that the vast majority of stuff submitted will be of the poorest quality and not worth the bother of listening to. If truth be told a complete waste of time and money of those who submit this material and waste of time for those who have to provide a critique if it was not for them being paid to do so. Now you know as well that a fee for submission will not deter the hopeless wannabes if anything it will be a nice carrot a guarantee that their stuff will be heard by some famous person who could make THEM famous. To illustrate my point AI has many thousands of delusional people queuing in all weather for an audition. Most are completely tone deaf and have never even sung in public. But they take a chance. At lesast that audition is free but if there was a charge they would still pay(surprised Cowell has not thought of that angle to exploit even more money from sad folk)
So logically what is the motive for these top pros to listen to thousands of submissions which will never make dollar one...MONEY...nothing else.
I am of the opinion that great talent is easy to find...so if these guys genuinely want to find new talent to promote etc..they can find it...without the hopefuls and hapless having to pay for an audience.
I wonder how much unsolicited stuff is reviewed or even listened to.
So all that said on the face of it I think that this method of working and this business model is unethical.
If I approach anyone to ask for work or for an audition I would expect a simple yes or no or free audition. If a person says yes you can audition but you have to pay me £500 for the pleasure. I would tell them where to get off. They have no interest in anything other than making money.....and even they were interested in me and a contract at the end of the audition is this the sort of person anybody would want to do biz with.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=687727&songID=5238055