My initial thinking behind any business idea was more often than not preceded by "what if Google clones my idea???!?!? :((((". Two things wrong with this line of thinking.
First it assumes Google can execute on said idea better than me and that I can't innovate. Here's the thing though; the bigger a company is the slower it gets. Sure, they can implement processes but big always gets more complex. Being small gives you an edge. What you do with that edge will determine whether FAANG apes your idea or not.
Secondly, big tech isn't immune to market forces. The more features they add, trying to please every last potential user leads to bloat. At some point their search experience is bound to get degraded from adding way too many features in pursuit of every last user. This adds more bureaucracy. More tech debt. More uncontrollable variables.
Search in 2021, especially on mobile, is vastly different from even 5 years ago. There are more ads, more tracking, more fraud, more shady back dealing, more user hostile anti-patterns. Yes, users currently enjoy their product but at some point surveillance capitalism will get its reckoning (see Apple, Europe, regulation in general) and for all the various products they have, search is the only relevant one. Without Search, how 'threatening' is Google really?
Same goes for Facebook and that hot mess of an app. News feed, groups, pages, dating, marketplace, messaging, watch, etc. All this reeks of a co. that's lost focus in pursuit of not ceding users to competitors. This just means when they fail (which they will!), they will fail spectacularly.
My advice to you and myself is focus on a niche. Try to do things that will be hard for FAANG to reproduce by making your users love your product more.
Competing head on with these behemoths is foolish, but a moat is possible nonetheless given proper execution.
First it assumes Google can execute on said idea better than me and that I can't innovate. Here's the thing though; the bigger a company is the slower it gets. Sure, they can implement processes but big always gets more complex. Being small gives you an edge. What you do with that edge will determine whether FAANG apes your idea or not.
Secondly, big tech isn't immune to market forces. The more features they add, trying to please every last potential user leads to bloat. At some point their search experience is bound to get degraded from adding way too many features in pursuit of every last user. This adds more bureaucracy. More tech debt. More uncontrollable variables.
Search in 2021, especially on mobile, is vastly different from even 5 years ago. There are more ads, more tracking, more fraud, more shady back dealing, more user hostile anti-patterns. Yes, users currently enjoy their product but at some point surveillance capitalism will get its reckoning (see Apple, Europe, regulation in general) and for all the various products they have, search is the only relevant one. Without Search, how 'threatening' is Google really?
Same goes for Facebook and that hot mess of an app. News feed, groups, pages, dating, marketplace, messaging, watch, etc. All this reeks of a co. that's lost focus in pursuit of not ceding users to competitors. This just means when they fail (which they will!), they will fail spectacularly.
My advice to you and myself is focus on a niche. Try to do things that will be hard for FAANG to reproduce by making your users love your product more.
Competing head on with these behemoths is foolish, but a moat is possible nonetheless given proper execution.