Speaking of platforms: In the Bernstein timeline someone went to Stockholm and convinced Notch that a cross between Steam and Kiva kicks off the next cultural revolution and all we need is a little “mancala money”

I doubt they need to, copying successful features is enough since their own version is the default and they can jam it in users faces in ways that third parties can't.

And just like their acquisitions based on Onvao data, they'll have a whole lot of information on what ideas are worth stealing.

More so than for copying, my guess is that with the release of the dating feature this policy could've probably caused tensions and legal problems with essentially all other dating apps out there.

Dating apps heavily use Facebook not only to get hard-to-fake user info (age/real name) and content for a profile (photos/likes), but also to provide some validity to profiles since Facebook and the social graph in general do a good job of keeping bots and fake profiles at bay, and users know that.

Nonetheless, this could've certainly raised anti-competitive concerns, and Facebook probably figured they are in a dominant-enough position that saving the scrutiny is worth the risk.

And then when your stealing is successful enough you have the laws changed so no one can do the same as you did.

FB doesn't imitate and improve, it steals and spoils.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/

> great poets imitate and improve, whereas small ones steal and spoil

> Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion.

> If you see a great master, you will always find that he used what was good in his predecessors, and that it was this which made him great.