...So you'd try to solve the same problem with a different sticker to score quick cash?

I'd like you to read this and contemplate.

http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/unix-koans/ten-thousand.htm...

If you didn't bother reading and contemplating, here's the gist:

There is no wolf to fear. We are all finite beings with finite time and resources. You 'stealing' his hypothetical business model doesn't really accomplish anything except tie up your resources retracing his steps. You would be the fool reimplementing the pipe.

Now if you are the type of person who reduces life down to only pursuing the almighty dollar rather than trying to solve difficult extant problems... Well... Maybe that would be worth it to you. Even then though, he has already captured his audience, and he'll likely have a reputation advantage over your copy.

Anywho. Food for thought.

> Let’s say you figure out how to run a company with 100M customers with only five employees.

That's not how it works. I'm pretty sure you and I could write a Snapchat clone in a weekend. This doesn't imply we'll ever reach 100M users.

You could write a Snapchat “clone” but not with anything close to its performance. Snapchat has to be the most performant app I have ever seen.

Is this new? I tried it out a couple years back on a decent spec phone and it was the slowest app I've ever used. I'm pretty sure Snapchat the app was known for being sort of a wreck at some point. My daughter still put up with it but it was painful to watch her use it.

I have a fairly high end Android phone (OnePlus 3) and Snapchat freezes up all the time. Video pretty much always stutters without fail. IIRC it was the same on my Nexus 5 as well.

Network effects?

Red Queen effect

Tremendous network effects and extremely high retention