[bensyverson]

I love the original article [0]; it seems like Mark had fun building this app. It doesn't seem like he expected it to make him a billionaire. So what's the problem? If you post a recipe on a cooking blog, and someone immediately rips it for their own site, that's a bummer, but like… what are you going to do, patent it?

We software developers are so used to software being difficult, time-consuming and expensive, but that world is gone. We're now much closer to other creative arts like writing, music or photography (and sadly, we're about to be paid like artists too). In a creative field, when someone has a good idea or style, it gets copied. But that's just art.

[0]: https://www.markround.com/blog/2026/03/05/returning-to-rails...

[mark_round]

I do really enjoy working on the site, it's great to have an outlet and playground for ideas and do things just for fun. There never was (and never will be) any commercial angle for this, as I said in a footnote in the "Sloppy Copies" post, I have other motives for writing code and I appreciate I am very fortunate that I have the opportunity to be able to do that.

There's always been a tendency amongst the "priesthood" of any in-group to hoard knowledge and use it to maintain their position. So, regarding the "democratizing" of creating software - I mostly agree with you, and also agree that it's probably a good thing. I think it's pretty neat that someone without any coding experience can create their own bespoke tooling to solve a problem. I have caveats and concerns, but that's a topic for another day.

I also agree with the "that's art" part of your comment. I learned to program by reading other people's code, learned to build infrastructure by watching what my peers were doing, and learned to play an instrument by listening to and copying musicians I admired. Heck, I play in a covers band!

The problem is that this isn't just someone being inspired to create their own thing and put their own spin on it, which could be cool.

Even "nice idea, I'm going to do that and see if I can charge for it" isn't really an issue, free market and all that. This is cloning and copying on an automated, industrial scale, apparently sometimes for malicious, criminal purposes too.

That's a far cry from creative copying of ideas.