You could argue that the healthiest thing for the ecosystem is to build highly defensible, technology-driven businesses. In that sense, Snapchats shouldn't exist at all.
On the other hand, giant companies like Facebook are the only ones who can really afford to just steal stuff and make it high performance. A startup's main premise can't be "technology-driven" in the most traditional sense of high performance. A startup will be out-performed by companies with more resources, like giant corporations.
Instead, think outside the box: what if you distribute data in a decentralized way, like BitTorrent? What if the bank is distributed, like Bitcoin? What if content wasn't ALLOWED to make money, like CC-NC? What if you organize the world's information by empowering authors, like Wikipedia?
People think Google has all the power and all the information, and they forget how much better Wikipedia is at achieving Google's own goals, at 1/100,000th the cost!
Wikipedia might not have a mapping product like Google's, and they don't index your e-mail, and it doesn't have as nice of a collaborative editor. Wikipedia is playing a different game altogether.
Google thought, well, let's copy/acquire these things that Microsoft does (Office, Exchange, Maps). Google is Microsoft's Facebook. Nothing is going to happen to Microsoft just because Google copies tons of their products, giving them away for free. Is Google bad for the ecosystem? Microsoft (and Snapchat, for that matter) are powerful companies.
Baidu copies Google features too—are they bad for the ecosystem? It's not obvious, because our dislike of these giant megacorporations and our assessment of their contributions to society are all colored by politics and opinions.
I think we're more interesting in protecting Wikipedias. In my opinion, Wikipedia is beating Google handily in the world's information department. Someone will figure out an unassailable (though not necessarily lucrative) answer to what Facebook and Snapchat attempt to do.
> On the other hand, giant companies like Facebook are the only ones who can really afford to just steal stuff and make it high performance. A startup's main premise can't be "technology-driven" in the most traditional sense of high performance. A startup will be out-performed by companies with more resources, like giant corporations.
I think it is an excellent point, but I also believe we find a balance. I see your point. Big corporation can spare money to experiment. This is Google's strategy. Throw a hundred developers and $50M investment and if fail remove the project from its catalog two years from now. Move on to the next item.
Unfortunately, I think luck being 30% in measuring success is a real deal breaker. Sometimes, your best idea (very profitable) just doesn't take off until the right moment, even if we have the best product team, the best sales pitch, the most intuitive platform. Sometimes it's playing Russian roulette. I recently read about Foursquare - that's a good example. The luck of finding the right people leading a new vision.
On the other hand, giant companies like Facebook are the only ones who can really afford to just steal stuff and make it high performance. A startup's main premise can't be "technology-driven" in the most traditional sense of high performance. A startup will be out-performed by companies with more resources, like giant corporations.
Instead, think outside the box: what if you distribute data in a decentralized way, like BitTorrent? What if the bank is distributed, like Bitcoin? What if content wasn't ALLOWED to make money, like CC-NC? What if you organize the world's information by empowering authors, like Wikipedia?
People think Google has all the power and all the information, and they forget how much better Wikipedia is at achieving Google's own goals, at 1/100,000th the cost!
Wikipedia might not have a mapping product like Google's, and they don't index your e-mail, and it doesn't have as nice of a collaborative editor. Wikipedia is playing a different game altogether.
Google thought, well, let's copy/acquire these things that Microsoft does (Office, Exchange, Maps). Google is Microsoft's Facebook. Nothing is going to happen to Microsoft just because Google copies tons of their products, giving them away for free. Is Google bad for the ecosystem? Microsoft (and Snapchat, for that matter) are powerful companies.
Baidu copies Google features too—are they bad for the ecosystem? It's not obvious, because our dislike of these giant megacorporations and our assessment of their contributions to society are all colored by politics and opinions.
I think we're more interesting in protecting Wikipedias. In my opinion, Wikipedia is beating Google handily in the world's information department. Someone will figure out an unassailable (though not necessarily lucrative) answer to what Facebook and Snapchat attempt to do.