> There are 1000s of ideas out there like this waiting for a novel thinker to draw them out of the fog and make them clearly visible
I think this is the exact reason people say ideas (on their own) aren't worth very much. "Drawing them out of the fog to make them clearly visible" is the implementation portion as far as I can tell. That's the part that makes the idea valuable.
I, along with thousands of others, had the idea for Doordash/UberEats long before either of them existed. Years before. However, if I had tried to implement the idea back then it still would have likely failed. Even though I had the idea, I had no idea how to implement it (and still probably don't, as it is much more than just a technical problem). I realize that Doordash isn't that novel of an idea. But I think even the incredibly novel ideas are thought of by dozens of people before the "right" person comes along to implement it.
That's why I don't think people are memeing when they say "ideas are worthless", as ggp implied. It's more of a response to the "I have an idea and I'll give you 5% if you build it for me" propositions that developers tend to get.
I think this is the exact reason people say ideas (on their own) aren't worth very much. "Drawing them out of the fog to make them clearly visible" is the implementation portion as far as I can tell. That's the part that makes the idea valuable.
I, along with thousands of others, had the idea for Doordash/UberEats long before either of them existed. Years before. However, if I had tried to implement the idea back then it still would have likely failed. Even though I had the idea, I had no idea how to implement it (and still probably don't, as it is much more than just a technical problem). I realize that Doordash isn't that novel of an idea. But I think even the incredibly novel ideas are thought of by dozens of people before the "right" person comes along to implement it.
That's why I don't think people are memeing when they say "ideas are worthless", as ggp implied. It's more of a response to the "I have an idea and I'll give you 5% if you build it for me" propositions that developers tend to get.