[pbreit]

Never, ever, ever, ever worry about anyone copying your stuff. Depend on your unique insight. No one can copy that. If in the extremely rare circumstance that someone copies you, be thrilled! That means you are building something valuable (which is extremely rare).

[streetcat1]

The only time someone will NOT copy you, is if the market is not worth it. But this is by definition a market that you should not play in.

Look at markets that are worth it (e.g. cloud computing)- they have products from different companies with exactly the same features.

In general, I am not sure what you are proposing. Let me publish my ideas for free, see someone copies them, and that be happy that I got it right?

[pbreit]

Thought it was clear: "Never, ever, ever, ever worry about anyone copying your stuff."

[planetzero]

This is bad advice. If you have a really good idea and a company in the same space with the money and resources to beat you to market sees it, it's very possible they will bring it to market before you.

Large companies like Google and Facebook will regularly feign interest in someone's app or idea (that they might want to purchase), only to roll it out themselves.

[pbreit]

99.9% of entrepreneurs are never going to actually compete against Google, Facebook, et al. And if they do, it's actually not that hard because the entrepreneur's approach will be completely different.

That's the whole point of the advice: stop worrying about being copied. It's a fake problem.