
Ask HN: Ethics vs. competition? - competitor
I fell in love in one of the startup ideas that I found recently. They are already in business, making great money.<p>I thought I want to create a similar business, or even better.<p>How do you guys see it? Stealing? Or competition is a natural, healthy thing?
I know that competition is natural, but I feel somewhat ashamed to do it anyway.<p>The business model and the application functionality would be very, very similar.
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muzani
My ethics is that a company is first responsible to the customers, then
employees, then shareholders, then society.

If a company isn't servicing their customers as well as it should, it's a good
thing to compete with them.

Competition among startups is especially healthy because markets are often
very early stage. Competitors often grow a market and encourage people to
adopt the thing because there are more choices. It gives employees more career
choice, especially if a company fails.

It also gives them more of a safety net. Let's say you have 3 competing
companies. 80% chance of startups failing, so two of these fail and the third
one becomes big. The people who were senior management of these failed
companies are very valuable to the ones who survive - they already have years
of very rare management training, they know the field well, they have faced
difficult choices and spent a long time analyzing their own failures.

So competing with startups is very good, especially if you remain on friendly
terms.

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bartvk
Stealing? The definition of stealing is "to take the property of another
wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice". The way you
describe it, you're copying an idea. I don't see any breaking of the law here.

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twobyfour
Unethical != Illegal. Plenty of legal actions are unethical.

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gt565k
If you can build a comparable or better product and execute better than them,
then more power to you!

This is exactly what you should be doing.

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twobyfour
Competition is absolutely ethical. The more competitors out there, the better
it is for your customers.

Anti-competitive practices undertaken in the name of _winning_ the competition
(not all practices, just those that undermine that level playing field) are
not ethical, and are detrimental to the consumer.

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competitor
Thanks @gt565k and @bartvk. You are of course right.

