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Originality and “innovation” is not as important as people think it is. It is perfectly OK to create a product in a niche which has a lot of existing competition, it’s OK to build on other people’s efforts, and it’s OK to “borrow” or “steal” (see the quote at the top) ideas from your users, competitors and friends.
You’re not getting credit for originality - you’re getting credit for high-quality products (software, services, support, etc. - whatever you do) and especially for revenue and profits. See Joel’s “Converting Capital into Software That Works” for more information
Another common fallacy is that ideas are the hardest part of the production process. However, ideas are very cheap, and creative people have far too many good ideas. It’s actually harder to develop the idea into a product, to mass-produce it, and then to mass-distribute it. Edison was not the first to come up with the Electrical Lightbulb, or to develop a working prototype, but he was the one to have put up all the effort in making it so popular and prevalent. Therefore, he is rightly credited as its inventor.
Similarly, in the software world, you can often see competing products displacing more established competition, or sometimes a market where there isn’t a clear winner (e.g: window managers and desktop environments for Unix, Bug trackers, text editors, etc.)
Even making rounder wheels is a good way to earn a living and to get respect.[IdeasSameTime]
[IdeasSameTime] Barry Jones said
If you have the same ideas as everybody else, but have them one week earlier than everyone else - then you will be hailed as a visionary. But if you have them five years earlier, you will be named a lunatic.
This illustrates that as technology progresses, people tend to get the same ideas at roughly the same time, when they are mature and the natural logical step forward. It’s unlikely you can avoid it.