[ainar-g]

>"We are using [Insert Tech Name] and it doesn't support feature X"

>So the entrepreneurs would rush to it's keyboard create a clone of the Tech and add the feature X.

Uhm, why is this bad? Haven't we all seen examples of companies that do the same stuff as other companies but better and succeed? I'm pretty sure even pg wrote about this in one of his "How to start a start-up" essays.

[dagw]

Uhm, why is this bad?

There are two big problems. If someone has lived without X for long enough they've probably found workarounds for living without X so that just adding X might not be that valuable to them or at least it might be hard to convince them how valuable it is to have X. The second is you often greatly underestimate how much work it is to get to the point where you have a good enough clone to even have something to add X to. And while you're busy working on your clone the original company might get around to adding X and thus undermining your whole business.

Haven't we all seen examples of companies that do the same stuff as other companies but better and succeed?

Sure, but they're often better in a whole category of ways (price or speed or ease of use etc.) and not just a clone of an existing product with X added.

[SimplyUnknown]

There's nothing wrong with it. As you say, many quality products come from this kind of work.

However, you can read this article as saying: "The only way you can sell software is by listening to customers and building exactly what they want." Which often is "We are using [Insert Tech Name] and it doesn't support feature X."

This narrative is clearly false. Many good products are built and monetized by just building something what you think the world needs or you think is fun to build. Again, many more of these software projects have failed using this strategy. Many good products are built and monetized by listening to customers and building what they want. And again, many poor clones that add no value are built using this way.

It is a two-way street which is not reflected in the article.