I haven't made it to the end of the video but here's my take on the subject: it is true - everyone is trying to create the exact same thing over and over again.

I haven't made it to the end of the video but here's my take on the subject: it is true - everyone is trying to create the exact same thing over and over again. But there are some key components that everyone misses. You can't replace facebook. People complain about facebook, but those of us who steer clear from it are a minority. And if potentially I were to create a facebook which solves the problems I have with the existing one, I'd be making a facebook clone that fits the requirements of a small subset of those who aren't on facebook. Basically insignificant market share and it would be a catastrophic waste of time, effort and money. Hence the reason why I'm not doing it(also because I find social networks inherently boring). The second big misconception is that in order to make a billion or even a million dollar product, you need to focus on a personal problem you are trying to solve. Essentially your product should solve your problem. And this lures people into an entirely different rabbit hole - convincing themselves that "X" is their problem and that many other people have that problem. Often no one has that problem or it's so insignificant that no one will even bother giving it a thought. The next big rabbit hole are apps. Don't get me wrong, apps are great and I rely on my phone heavily. However the Pareto rule is in full effect here. People will have 60 apps installed, and will use around 20% of those. And they will use heavily 20% of that subset. Say the average human being spends, say, an hour and a half on his or her phone a day. 80% of which will be messaging/social media, where you can't compete. So you are left competing with 10 other apps for the user's attention for a portion of the remaining 36 minutes. Sure, you could get a few thousand users out of several billion people. But again, Pareto's rule: most of your revenue will come from a small subset of those. Which often defeats the purpose. It's really hard to compete as a startup or an indie developer, when thousands of companies have thousands of astonishing developers at their disposal + the finances to back up any new project. In addition, an idea in itself is worth nothing. It's what you do with it and how you market it that counts. Which leads me to my final point. Billion dollar ideas are really hard to execute because the bar has been set very high. It's not something a single person or a small team can pull off. Those who do are the black swans. On a semi-related note, when the pandemic started, I was pretty convinced that many people will step up their game and come up with relevant products which will help the world adapt to the new normal. Which didn't happen to my big surprise. And I'm kind of disappointed that I didn't take on the challenge either(too much on my plate already + it's hard to work alone on a project). There were so many opportunities that were entirely missed... Shame but oh well... Next time maybe...