[slackstation]

How is offering a similar application with similar modes of communication, similar formatting unethical but, copying an API like the Java API for Android not considered unethical in the same vein?

I'd have to think there isn't a legal case or the billion dollar company that is Snapchat would have mounted a case. They didn't patent an interface (code or visual). They didn't try to protect it or even make a public case that it was somehow copying.

Yet, here we are on Hacker News saying it's somehow unethical? At this level, all social networks are "clones" of each other. Twitter is a clone of the FB news feed. Android is a clone of the iPhone. All of the food delivery startups are clones of each other. They all should do the moral thing and close up shop or at least pivot to something else.

Except we would all be poorer for it. We would have less options, less innovations and fewer ways to communicate. If any of the parties thought this was unethical stealing of their work, they are big boys and well funded; they'd at the very least say so.

You may not like FB/Instagram because of it but, if it's a superior free product and no one is making a case then I don't think it's immoral.