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Comment by strikelaserclaw | Hacker News Reader

at what point is competition stifled when large companies can just totally copy competition by throwing money at something. In ten years, we will have an American Samsung.

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It is an interesting definition of competition if you can stifle it by allowing competitors who offer very similar or identical products.

When I was a kid that was competition.

i speak in the spirit of creating an environment that doesn't allow large companies to destroy small companies by copying their ideas or buying them out, which i believe is beneficial to society at large in the longer run. It is my fundamental belief that if left unchecked, large tech companies will become monopolies in their fields (which might already have happened).

It's not about large competitors with deep pockets, but that network effects mean a shitty FB clone can be worth more than entire businesses designed around specific concepts.

At least an American Samsung would be useful, if it means bringing back semiconductor manufacturing to the US. Better than having our brightest engineers work on copying each other's photo apps.

How would you address the problem when you can’t copyright a business model or an idea? It’s very true the value is in the execution, and in a lot of cases, an enormous tech company with effectively limitless resources will always be able to execute better than you.

I’m a fan of using regulation against such entities and behaviors, I’m just unsure what the antitrust or monopoly issue is on short social video clips. You could build something similar with Backblaze, Cloudflare, and mobile apps.

where's the problem for the consumer?

One might argue the consumer doesn't get access to products that could be superior due to incumbents choking out innovators (like saplings trying to grow in a forest below mature trees blocking out the sun).

if you're building a business which a large company can just come in and copy by throwing money at it, then you're doing it wrong.

You should either have a plan or try hard to come up with one to prevent that situation, or avoid that market altogether. This is business 101 and is the most frequently asked question when you pitch a VC: "What will you do when Google copies you?"

Tiktok is worth about 50 billion dollars. Hard to argue that’s “doing it wrong”

The valuation has nothing to do with "doing it right", especially when it's not even a public company.

Also, TikTok won't just die because of Instagram. Instagram failed so many times with their copycat products. Which is exactly my point. The product will win if a large company can't win simply by throwing money at it.

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