Like when Twitter acquired Tweetie and gave it away for free?
It doesn't seem like it's terribly impacted the other players, at least that's my perception. (could be wrong - someone with hard stats pls correct me)
My point being: that fear alone while is a rational one, should not be the only criteria to definitively say that an idea should not be pursued b/c it guarantees that you will fail in your startup
Not like that. That's buying the leading competitor and putting your brand on their product. It's still competing on a pretty even playing field with all the others. What people here are talking about is bundling a clone of your product in with the main product. When Microsoft made IE a part of Windows, it killed Netscape and basically the entire market of for-profit browsers forever. When Apple knocked off Karelia's Watson and included it with the system, it killed that product. Ditto with Konfabulator, which was destroyed by Dashboard.
The danger is that when your app can be absorbed into something more popular. They don't compete with you — they just destroy the market for what you do.
It doesn't seem like it's terribly impacted the other players, at least that's my perception. (could be wrong - someone with hard stats pls correct me)
My point being: that fear alone while is a rational one, should not be the only criteria to definitively say that an idea should not be pursued b/c it guarantees that you will fail in your startup