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Comment by sgift | Hacker News Reader

I don't know. The whole post reads to me like it can be summed up as "I like Snapchat, I don't like Facebook" and some padding to disguise that. Saying Snapchat innovated and Facebook stole also reminds me of Apple suing Samsung for using rounded corners on phones i.e. ridiculous in my opinion. As if "hey, let's use the camera some more" was some grand vision that only Snapchat had.

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I think it's more that he has a distaste for Facebook's "90's-Microsoft-esque" strategy of watching like a hawk for any potential competitors in the space, and going to them with a "either let us acquire you, or we will crush you" offer, and how successful that strategy has been so far. Most people have a vague sense, if only for aesthetic and "fairness" reasons, that we don't want the world to work like that. Unfortunately, the world doesn't care about our wants.

Don't be fooled by the showboating, behind every attempt at executing these aggressive strategies is a crumbling organization rife with disharmony and malcontent. They would not be focusing on what other companies were doing nearly this much if they did not feel threatened by it.

Yes, when your success relies on a monopoly or dominant position, your future is at stake if you don't use your dominant position to remove any competition that may chip at your domination.

This is exactly why monopoly are hurting everybody but the people profiting from it.

Eh, the aggregate of all our baseless wants and opinions can make shit fly that normally would not fly.

I bet Snapchat wished they had some patents on their product to assert against Facebook (and if they do and they aren't, they're idiotic). They're going to be destroyed (or have a ceiling placed on their growth) because Facebook can leverage its network effect based competitive advantage.

I can't think of a better recent example than the story of Snapchat and Facebook's ripping them off in favor of patents.

The answer to this question is literally on the first page of a google for "snapchat patent stories"

https://www.wired.com/2016/08/instagrams-snapchat-ripoff-bra...

“The idea of featured ‘Stories’ is not new, so any patents would likely be quite specific to implementation details,” says Wagner. “And because the implementation/interfaces are slightly different, copyright doesn’t provide any protection. This is an area where IP laws don’t prevent the copying of another’s features or innovations.”

There wasn't a question in my comment. And I'm not sure how much value there is in a generic comment about intellectual property from a professor because the journalist needed a quote for their story.

>>> "if they do and they aren't, they're idiotic"

There's an implicit question, or at least an admission of ignorance.

Ok - so let us all believe in you since you are such an expert in patent law?

Do you really think that the idea of patenting "story" wouldn't have come across Snap given that is their main revenue driving feature? Do you think FB should have patented NF back when it was the first one who launched it?

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