No, not again.

You were born an original. Don’t die a copy.

Here’s a quick question — What do Snapchat stories, Instagram stories and WhatsApp’s new ‘Status’ feature have in common? Answer — A photo or video that can be posted on your own feed visible to you and all your friends, that disappears after 24 hours. The idea is to keep adding photos or videos to create your story for everyone to see!

Another one — How similar are Snapchat, Instagram and WhatsApp as products at the core? Snapchat allows sharing of self destructing photos and videos, Instagram is a simple photo/video sharing app & WhatsApp is a cross-platform instant messenger. Easy to guess, they serve completely different purposes.

Now that we know the first two answers, here comes the most important question — Why is each one of them trying to be like the other? To be more fair, why are most products trying to do everything to become like other products? And more specifically, why are features being copied and implemented? At least this is what the current trend looks like.

Although I don’t have an answer, I do have an opinion and it’s short and simple –

Every good and successful product is unique. It was created for a reason with a thought. It’s meant to do something that only it can do very well. Of course, it will evolve with time but then does evolution necessarily mean more features? If it’s indeed the right parameter to measure it, then all you need is time, effort and some research. Innovation takes a backseat here.

But then, isn’t there a big compromise that this approach brings along — deformation of the original shape of the product. Also, I wonder why product makers can’t tell the world that it is what it is. If this is an unacceptably bold and difficult thing to do, how will they convince users that their copied feature is better than others? Do users actually care about the implementation of something that was just added because it was the ‘in-thing’ or because a competitor did it? Perhaps not.

Herman Melville put it beautifully –

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.

Users love a product because it does something they want to do, in the most convenient way possible. How would they feel if their favorite app morphs into a by-product of feature plagiarism? Evolution is crucial to survival but directionless feature addition is not the right way to achieve it. Addition of too many features (copied or not) may make a product look stronger on paper but it rusts the original experience. And, don’t forget, it also brings a big risk for all the product makers who are getting seduced by the feature heavy approach — it can upset your loyal user base; it might even kill it entirely. And, that is bad news.

We, at Newton, have always believed in evolving the product. We’ve never been in a rush to add features (let alone copy) mindlessly. The aim has always been to trust the vision and process. That being said, if a feature makes sense to us, we’ll surely add it. This doesn’t mean that user feedback is irrelevant to us; it is something that we consider priceless. What you see in Newton today is a result of immense effort put into creating a perfect mix of user feedback and our idea of evolution. Superchargers brought in the extra horsepower without compromising on the core values. We won’t do something just because it is cool (e.g. AI to manage emails). It’s indeed tough to stand ground with so much going around, but, I’m glad that we’ve been able to do it. This is what makes Newton, if I may humbly add, not just a product, but, an experience.

So, here’s a request to all the product makers out there —

Learn to say “No” before your users say: “No, not again”.

Do you have the answer? Let me know in the comments below!