Comment by kazinator
5 years ago
> Why does it have to be original to be a product people will pay for?
No, no; for that it absolutely doesn't. People pay for all sorts of goods that are not original, like loaves of bread, pairs of sneakers or T-shirts.
It had better be original if you're going to harass former interns that they're ripping off some intellectual property, and threaten them with lawyers.
That's all.
Sorry, my reply was a bit too aggressive and I jumped to conclusions about what you meant.
You're right, though I still think repl.it has some right to be protective of their IP here. The originality of the service is in the ease of use and modernizing the old timesharing idea, so while they were quick to mention legal action and acted obnoxiously to their former intern, they're right to be weary of something that looks so similar to their product and judging from the emails even in the implementation details.