Sometimes we need to copy first and innovate later...
From Replication to Revolution: How Technological Copycats Spark Global Innovation
The central theme of recent discussions in digital products and business has been the launch of the new AI platform DeepSeek, a major Chinese competitor to OpenAI, whose arrival has significantly impacted the U.S. tech market. This event has not only reignited debates on intellectual property and global competition in AI but also highlighted China's role in reshaping the global technological landscape.
While exploring a particular perspective in Global Economic Landscape: China's Impact on the Digital Economy, I came across a Financial Times report that adds an even more intriguing layer to this discussion: "OpenAI says it has evidence China’s DeepSeek used its model to train competitor."
Brilliantly commented on by Naval Ravikant:
“Turns out that instead of scraping the web to train an AI, you can just scrape the AI that scraped the web.”
This statement not only raises fundamental reflections about the future of artificial intelligence, the boundaries of technological ethics, and the challenges of innovation in a highly competitive global environment but also draws our attention to another detail: Sometimes we need to copy first and innovate later...
Setting aside the innovation hype for a moment and looking into the past, we can find several practical cases where a successful product was copied and reinvented by another company.
Instagram Stories
In mid-2015, Snapchat, the social media platform that gained popularity by innovating with its timed posts and ephemeral messaging, was reaching the milestone of 100 million daily active users (DAUs)—a significant achievement.
Not wanting to be left behind, in 2016, Instagram launched the Stories feature, a format for posts that disappeared after 24 hours. This concept already existed and was Snapchat’s primary differentiator at the time.
At its peak in 2017, Snapchat achieved impressive milestones: 166 million daily active users, 10 billion videos viewed per day, and a market value of $30 billion during its 2017 IPO.
Instagram’s innovation lay in its integration with its ecosystem (unlike Snapchat, Instagram already had an established and active user base, eliminating the need to attract new audiences), the simplicity of its experience (Stories was easy to use, without the excessive filters and features that Snapchat had at the time), leveraging its existing product’s algorithm (Instagram Stories was integrated into the main feed and immediately highlighted), and engagement tools (introducing innovations like polls, stickers, and links, facilitating direct interaction with followers).
In just one year, Instagram Stories surpassed Snapchat in daily active users. Today, it is one of the most-used features on the platform, generating massive engagement for brands and users, directly reflecting Instagram’s financial success.
Facebook vs. MySpace
In mid-2004, MySpace was gaining traction, with its user base growing exponentially and reaching 1 million registered users—a significant milestone at the time. By the end of that year, MySpace became the largest social network in the United States, surpassing Friendster (its biggest competitor at the time). Eventually, the site recorded around 3 million unique monthly visitors.
Facebook was launched in 2004, a few years after MySpace. It innovated by introducing a cleaner and less customizable design (eliminating the frequent visual clutter of MySpace), implementing a news feed (a groundbreaking feature that revolutionized how people interacted with content), and betting on initial exclusivity (targeting students only to create interest).
Years later, the user experience model created by Facebook would become a trend in the market. It surpassed MySpace to become the largest social network in the world, while MySpace gradually lost its relevance.
TikTok vs. Vine
Launched in 2013, Vine was one of the first apps to popularize short videos, limited to 6 seconds. Vine’s concept was simple: create and share quick, funny clips that could be easily consumed and shared. This time constraint boosted creativity, as creators had to be concise when telling jokes or presenting content.
Vine quickly gained popularity, with celebrities, comedians, and musicians creating viral content on the platform. The quick nature of the videos made the app addictive, and many users spent hours watching short clips (the pure magic Hooked), which were highly shareable.
Despite its initial success, Vine faced challenges that led to its shutdown in 2017. The main issue was a lack of effective monetization, making it difficult to attract high-quality creators in the long term. Additionally, Vine lacked a recommendation model as effective as the one later implemented by TikTok, resulting in a more fragmented user experience and less engagement for creators.
Another factor was the rise of Instagram and Snapchat, which began incorporating short videos into their platforms and offering more features, such as filters and effects, that drew users away from Vine. Ultimately, Vine failed to evolve enough to compete with these more robust and diversified platforms.
Emerging in 2017, TikTok responded with a more modern and dynamic approach to the short video concept but with improvements that enabled much faster and more sustainable growth:
Unlike Vine’s 6-second limit, TikTok initially allowed videos up to 15 seconds (later extended to 3 minutes and, more recently, up to 10 minutes). This gave creators more freedom to express their ideas and tell more complex stories while maintaining the short video essence.
TikTok stood out with its “For You Page” (FYP), a highly sophisticated recommendation algorithm that personalized each user’s feed based on their interactions (likes, shares, watch time, etc.). This algorithm created a more immersive and addictive experience, keeping users on the app longer and allowing content to go viral quickly.
TikTok invested heavily in partnerships with the music industry, offering an extensive library of songs, visual effects, and filters, which facilitated the creation of viral and engaging content. The platform also encouraged trends like dances, memes, and challenges, which quickly gained global traction.
Airbnb vs. Craigslist
Craigslist was one of the first online platforms to allow individuals to post products and services in a simple and straightforward way, including property rentals. As a classifieds website, it didn’t focus specifically on short-term rentals. Its basic format allowed people to list properties for rent, but the interface was rudimentary, and the navigation experience was not user-friendly. There were no sophisticated search, organization, or filtering mechanisms, and property images were often of poor quality or non-existent.
Airbnb, launched in 2008, capitalized on these shortcomings and innovated strategically.
Airbnb was founded with the idea of creating a platform that allowed people to rent out spaces in their homes to travelers. It approached the problem differently, focusing not only on being a property rental platform but also on creating a complete hosting experience.
Airbnb emphasized offering a modern, intuitive, and visually appealing platform. High-quality images of properties were a significant innovation, allowing guests to see exactly what they were renting.
The site and app navigation were simple, with robust search filters, enabling users to find precisely the type of accommodation they were looking for, such as entire apartments, private rooms, or vacation homes.
Perhaps one of Airbnb’s greatest innovations, widely adopted by other digital product models, was the creation of a two-way review system, where both hosts and guests could review each other after a stay. This helped build mutual trust. Reviews and ratings created a reputation system that users could rely on before booking.
This system not only increased trust but also improved service quality, as hosts were motivated to maintain well-kept properties to earn good reviews.
Airbnb also focused on being a global platform, allowing users to find accommodations not just in their cities but anywhere in the world. This was a significant differentiator compared to Craigslist’s geographic limitations at the time.
Additionally, Airbnb implemented a secure payment system between hosts and guests, ensuring that payments were only processed once the stay was confirmed. By keeping payments entirely within the platform’s flow, Airbnb maintained complete control over revenue.
But that's not all...
To fully grasp the complexity of the current macroeconomic landscape, we’re not just dealing with a simple feature copied and surpassed by another organization. What unfolds before us is something much larger: the race to the frontier of what is possible in software engineering and the development of new technologies, with immense potential to shape the future.
We stand on the brink of a technological transformation of global proportions, where each breakthrough and every new development is not merely a response to market demand but a testament to humanity's power and ability to push boundaries once thought insurmountable. The question is no longer about who managed to launch a new product version or a more efficient feature. We’re talking about the exploration of domains where software and innovation intersect with areas like artificial intelligence, complex systems engineering, and even the digital space.
Sputnik 2.0 or not, this race for technological dominance is not just a competition between companies or nations. It represents a collective effort to define the future of a connected humanity.
References
Naval. (n.d.). Naval. Retrieved February 2, 2025;
Naval. (2025). Naval Quote [Tweet]. Retrieved February 2, 2025;
Financial Times. (n.d.). OpenAI says it has evidence China’s DeepSeek used its model to train competitor. Retrieved February 2, 2025;
On Product Path. (n.d.). The Rise of Mandarin and the New Technological Race. Retrieved February 2, 2025.