The incentive to create new currencies has really only taken major effect over the past year. Up until then, the term "ICO" hardly even existed. Since that time we've seen a goldrush to launch separate blockchains and sell ICO's.
But that's just a natural by-product of crypto currency's evolution. The amounts being raised in ICO's has been steadily decreasing. In summer 2017, you could raise $100M on a half decent project. Today, you're lucky to raise $10M. Investors are also demanding more transparency and deliverables from the projects.
This trend will continue as the market matures. Fundraising will continuously become more difficult once investors get burned a few times. This is all very new, people have no idea what they're doing. Eventually the fools will go broke and the smart money will remain.
The reality is that with so many scams / useless projects being launched every day, investors need to do more and more research to get positive ROI.