[lelanthran]

> Which clones?

Are you seriously contending that apps that have Obsidians functionality don't exist?

Just on HN alone, throughout 2023 - 2025 we were seing like one new TODO app show up on HN weekly!

> And why not the others?

Because money is the moat, and they have it!

That was my entire point - money is the moat.

[gzread]

You have failed to provide a single example of an Obsidian clone.

[literallywho]

There are so many of them, aren't there? There's Roam Research (might be the OG one), Logseq (FOSS Obsidian basically), Notion, Emacs' Org-Roam, Anytype, etc. Neovim has like 5 extensions implementing the same idea (such as Neorg), Bram's Vim probably has its own plugins in Vim9script.

[prmph]

You are not making sense.

> Just on HN alone, throughout 2023 - 2025 we were seing like one new TODO app show up on HN weekly!

This response shows you missed my point entirely. I am saying a todo app does not a PKM make! I'm not interested in a vibe-coded todo app, it is useless to me.

> Because money is the moat, and they have it!

You're sidestepping issue and contradicting yourself. I asked: if cloning is so easy, why has no one cloned the JetBrains IDEs, for example?

Remember, I'm not talking about what happens after the cloning. Are you saying no one has cloned Jetbrains because it takes a lot of money to do so? That would contradict your claim that AI makes it easy.

[lelanthran]

What's the point you are trying to make here? That it is not possible to trivially clone good ideas?

Let's start with my actual claim - "It is now trivially possible for someone to clone your good idea".

I want to clarify your position: Do you think that the bar for cloning someone else's good idea is now:

1. Harder to do with AI,

2. Easier to do with AI,

3. Exactly the same level of difficulty it always was.

Because if you are arguing that #2 is an incorrect answer, there's no real point in continuing the argument, is there? I'm taking #2 as a given, and you appear to be arguing that it is a baseless assumption.

[prmph]

My point is that "easier" is not the same as "trivial".

Yes, for a skilled and determined hacker, judicious use of AI can enable them do more. That is a far cry from "AI makes cloning complex flagship apps trivial".

Furthermore, the value of software is not primarily in the arrangement of bits. It is about the technical, domain, and contextual knowledge you gain as you develop the software, the understanding you gain about your customers, etc. AI cannot give you that on a whim.

[lelanthran]

> That is a far cry from "AI makes cloning complex flagship apps trivial".

That is not what I claimed, though.

I said "Cloning your good idea", and context in this thread and this story is not, nor was it ever, about producing Windows 11 or a similarly large and non-trivial product.

It was, IIRC, about small teams (the actual story is about a solo founder) executing a good idea, and then seeing someone with a $20 CC account cloning that product in a week.

That's what I responded to.