[johnhess]

This is a shame, and says more about the consolidation of the tech industry than Hipmunk's product.

One of Hipmunk's founders spoke to a course that I was in about their experience as a founder and how they were running their business. A few weeks later, a well known founder of another travel search company visited the class and said outright that if Hipmunk did have any success, that they would copy those features and that Hipmunk couldn't threaten their position. That is exactly what happened.

To boot, Hipmunk was acquired and shuttered by another travel conglomerate.

[anonu]

> says more about the consolidation of the tech industry than Hipmunk's product

I kinda disagree. Hipmunk did not have access to the data that gave users a complete pictures on all travel routes. Even if they had a nice UI/ux, the underlying data was incomplete.

People naturally gravitated to sites where they found a route they wanted for the price they wanted.

[ck425]

That's true but it's also true that getting access to flight data is far easier the larger you get. Therefore the flights metasearch industry (and travel metasearch in general) will tend to consolidate to an extent.

[linuxftw]

An often echoed sentiment around here is 'is your startup idea a product, or a feature?' If you startup is a feature, it's just going to be copied.

The only way to prevent this is with patents.

[realtalk_sp]

> The only way to prevent this is with patents.

There are other ways. Network effects. Economies of scale. Branding. Arguably regulatory capture.

[fergie]

Internet search was regarded as a feature right up until about 2000.

[rhizome]

Twitter is a feature.

[hobs]

Are networking effects a product or a feature?

[rhizome]

Category error, they're an effect. Is hunger a kind of food?

[wolco]

That strategy only works so far. Keep adding and things get bloated. Servicing a narrow use-case can cause them problems with coping.

[majani]

Facebook, WeChat and Office are counterpoints.

[gregmac]

They did? Who copied their features (particularly the awesome visualization)?