Calling it "always play catch-up" is unfair. It's really "See an existing product and try to execute it better" with catch-up as the first phase.
And oftentimes when they do play catch-up they certainly don't have to for long. If anything, for the first three any catching up to do is going to be the other way around.
As opposed to? It's very rare to ever see a completely unique idea. I guarantee that just about every product you use on a day to day basis is a derivative of a derivative of a derivative of the original concept.
Taking a core product and improving it is one of the main pieces of advice in this community. I don't see why there should be any negative connotation for a larger business doing it as well. And for the record, I don't see a single product on the left-hand side of that list that wasn't "in response", "playing catch-up", or a derivative idea from someone else's hard work.
I gotta say, I'm already burned out on the Groupon-type sites. I'm not sure why they think I need to get waxed two times a week—I haven't seen a relevant offer in months, after buying a few in the first couple months. The only one that I still check interestedly is the Living Social travel deals, because with those, if you get a hit once a year, it was worth it.
- Hotmail (Gmail)
- Mapquest (G Maps)
- Firefox/IE (G Chrome)
- iOS (Android)
- Apple TV (G TV)
- Twitter (G Buzz)
- Facebook (G +)
- Groupon (G Offers)
etc.