Comment by rhubarbtree
5 months ago
This is mislead by the nerd philosophy that the tech is the business. It absolutely isn’t, the tech is a small part of a startup. Witness that Spotify continues to exist despite being known and replicated by the major giants.
Poetically expressed, but ultimately based on a false notion of what a business actually is.
It's nuanced. Spotify is a giant, I think the example you're looking for here is Soundcloud. They almost went bust, but managed to get the ads business right and seem to be afloat now. So I think you're right in that sense, but also wrong in the sense that if I'm building a desktop app or tooling software, my business is probably much easier to get replicated and displaced.
you picked one fairly rare thing with an incredible non-tech moat that is also a cancer for the artist, bravo!!
TikTok, cloned by Meta, still winning.
Slack, cloned by Microsoft, still winning.
Skyscanner. Dropbox. Snapchat. Dating Apps. All cloned. Still going.
The tech is not the business.