"Why build X when Y exists?"

Why are you making this argument when people have already made this argument before? :P

I don't think there's any problem with building something similar to the competition. The problem I see most often is someone building an exact copy of Y and trying to compete on price. I think that is almost always a mistake.

Build X when Y exists, but have a different take on it, target a slightly different audience for which Y isn't optimal, or do something to differentiate yourself. Don't build a feature for feature copy of something and try to market it as a "cheap Y".

I totally agree. Why build X when Y exists? Because you already know it works.

If you walk down any popular shopping area in SF (or any big city) you'll notice there are several of the same types of restaurants and shops on one block. For example, there are 3 ice cream shops less than a block from each other in Hayes valley. There are several nail shops right next door to each other on California. Mattress stores and car dealerships tend to open right across the street from each other. Clusters of like businesses tend to thrive. Plus the market has already been tested, so it decreases the likelihood of failure.

Here is a good story on the phenomenon. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121304873?storyId=121304873

Online, you just have to differentiate slightly to find a customer base.

The question has already been studied by some academics from harvard. Here it's: https://hbr.org/2010/06/what-copycats-know-about-innov.html

This is the link to their book : https://www.amazon.fr/Copycats-Smart-Companies-Imitation-Strategic/dp/1422126730

I had this exact same conversation with some friends a few days ago. I think that making a "clone" but with only a handful of features and done very well, is probably easier for people to understand and get used to (if it satifies their need), than existing "big" products doing way much more.

Alternatives are far better than having a choice of only one.

My response to those questions are this...

They've validated the idea before, and there's no reason I can't get my slice of their pie.

because that's how technology/engineering moves forward. generally inventors gets jacked and the next next next guy makes a killing

People overvalue ideas, execution is what really matters.

There's tons of things that more or less does the same thing, what they do however do is to innovate upon each other ideas, for example you can compare Bit Bucket, Github, Gitlab, Codegiant.

All more or less the same service, i don't know if i personally would risk making yet another service for Git, but i know as a developer i enjoy having many choices on how to handle version control. And i'm sure there's someone out there right now with an idea on how to innovate upon these already very well established brands of Git, and in a few years who knows maybe we'll all be using it.

---------

And then not to ignore the fact that sometimes complete copy cat business ideas succeed, sometimes people can just copy an existing thing and become more successful through other means than innovation.

Slightly less "sexy" but still something that happens ¯\(ツ)/¯

Facebook is one case of this but it worked because when it launched the social network market was stagnated.

All I'm saying is don't go into a market that's saturated