I'm sorry, I feel I came across as making a broader point than I was. Probably because of the "birth and death" bit which really isn't what I meant to focus on.

I'm talking about a few specific examples that are astonishingly easy to clone yet are being assigned enormous value. Groupon is what I was thinking of especially, but I didn't want to "name names"... which is probably why I came across as making a broad point. Dropbox is now being challenged in this way, and many have been talking a lot about their sustainable competitive advantage since the whole Steve Jobs "feature" quote. Instagram.

I wasn't making a direct comment about tech startups in general, many of which are carving out real markets they want to crush.