Well, I don't know that "Welcome to the real world" matters. No-one in HN is saying that they should be banned from doing it, or otherwise prevented. Just that we, as a community, don't value the people that do it.

I wasn't trying to be clever.

Copying is 99% of most businesses as it should be I guess.

airbnb werent the first to come up with this concept they just happende to be the ones who became successful with it.

I am not trying to defend the germans and I am not trying to take anything away from the airbnb guys.

Just that it seems a tad removed from reality to not value that a company is able to make money by being fast executioners of proven ideas.

I wouldn't do it myself, I value originality as much as the next guy. But are what they are doing really that despicable?

Speak for yourself please :).

> The point of having a business is to make money, not to save the world or be original.

yes, but in todays world if you are not solving a problem ("save the world"), then your business most likely will not make money.

And yet here we are discussing a company that apparently have no problem doing exactly that. Just like most other companies out there.

Is Facebook solving a problem out there? Or are they solving a problem they created themselves.

Many businesses are build around this concept and the lines between solving problems and creating a demand are rather blurry.

Thom are you serious? of course Facebook solves the problem -- before it was hard to easily connect with others on such a broad spectrum. No, they were not first with social platform, "friending", IM, sharing photos, etc, but they did all this in the right time and place plus all the luck they had as a result they are the biggest social network which is a huge leverage on the market. My parents found tens of friends from military, schools, camps that took place 40 years ago, people that they lost connection with because there were no internet and no tools in place that time. So as much as I don't like Facebook and all the ongoing privacy issues, I would say: yes, they did solve a problem!

So by your definition the germans are solving a real problem then. The problem of localization. In other words, they are saving the world.

See the lines are rather blurry. Ultimately everything can be argued as solving a problem. But that is IMO a very unproductive way of looking at things.