"A technology emerges that magically makes it easy to copy my SaaS app and use it in its entirety without paying the monthly subscription."
Before such technology existed it would make sense to pursue such a business plan.
But suppose such technology already exists, and you know it. It would be sort of foolish to plan a business that assumed such technology would not be used.
Now suppose that this magic technology was not invented for the purpose of copying SaaS apps, but was an inevitable side-effect of other good, useful, desirable technologies.
A side-effect of the technology that allowed you to build your SaaS app in the first place. Oh, and your app helped shut down other existing businesses that were not using this new technology.
That it can copy your site is simply one of a million things it can do.
Do you fight this technology? Freeze it? Criminalize it?
One of my gripes with the IP industrial complex is that there are companies that lucked out on a transitory scarcity because of a particular stage of technological evolution.
Tools existed for mass-producing physical copies and transmitting virtual copies across large distances (i.e tape and CD production, and radio/TV), but there were still sufficient financial and technical barriers to constrain its application.
These businesses were based on the assumption that cheap reproduction and mass data transfer would never become so cheap or so easy that just about anyone could do it with the push of a button.
Before such technology existed it would make sense to pursue such a business plan.
But suppose such technology already exists, and you know it. It would be sort of foolish to plan a business that assumed such technology would not be used.
Now suppose that this magic technology was not invented for the purpose of copying SaaS apps, but was an inevitable side-effect of other good, useful, desirable technologies.
A side-effect of the technology that allowed you to build your SaaS app in the first place. Oh, and your app helped shut down other existing businesses that were not using this new technology.
That it can copy your site is simply one of a million things it can do.
Do you fight this technology? Freeze it? Criminalize it?
One of my gripes with the IP industrial complex is that there are companies that lucked out on a transitory scarcity because of a particular stage of technological evolution.
Tools existed for mass-producing physical copies and transmitting virtual copies across large distances (i.e tape and CD production, and radio/TV), but there were still sufficient financial and technical barriers to constrain its application.
These businesses were based on the assumption that cheap reproduction and mass data transfer would never become so cheap or so easy that just about anyone could do it with the push of a button.
Bad assumption. And now the cat's out of the bag.