Your metaphor is wholly flawed. This would be like if you wanted to get in to a restaurant because of the great food, decor, and excellent ties the waiters were wearing, but couldn't get in. So you went next door and created your own restaurant with the same recipes, decor, and ties on the waiters, but let anyone in.
Building something with similar functionality is one thing; building a stem-to-stern carbon copy is just low class.
No, it would be like if a restaurant passed out flyers advertising its great food, decor, and excellent ties, with a footnote at the bottom saying "PS: only beautiful, successful, wealthy people are allowed in, and that doesn't include you."
When the second restaurant opened, promoting its inclusionary nature and affordable prices, I'd eat there every day for a week, because fuck those first guys. Fuck 'em for thinking that their making something halfway interesting entitles them to superiority, and fuck 'em for thinking the right way to show off something interesting is to emphasize how you're not allowed to try it out.
David Karp wanted a blogging interface that made blogging easier and more beautiful and more diverse. Several years later, Tumblr is one of the largest sites on the Internet. I don't like the direction it ultimately took, but I admire the hell out of David for releasing his cool idea to users who then turned it into something incredible and wholly unpredictable.
I also find it amusing that we're calling Svtble "great", when it's just a simple, well-made tool with one neat organizational technique – it's like Quietwrite with a todo list attached. Simple and well-made is much appreciated, but you don't get to be a douchebag until you've actually made something significant. Or you can make that thing and remain a nice and humble guy, because the two are not mutually fucking exclusive.
Agreed. If only the landing page said: "This is a network of bloggers by invitation only while we iron out the kinks. Sign up to get notified when we are open to the public." Then this would have turned out much more differently.
Whether he wanted to open it to the public is another question though.
You make an awful lot of assumptions about how others would act. I definitely wouldn't eat at the second restaurant, because they'd be scumbags for ripping off the first restaurant and I wouldn't want to support them.
Exclusivity is not a license to, nor a justification for, outright copying.
@54mf: What if the restaurant in question told you that the reason for excluding you wasn't a "closed beta" but rather that you aren't witty or intelligent enough?
Building something with similar functionality is one thing; building a stem-to-stern carbon copy is just low class.