Imitation is part of the game.
We are all unique individuals. We love the way we are and, we know that everyone is different. Though we distinctive many things in our life copy from others. We imitate from choosing a career to starting a business. If someone amongst our friends got success, we would try to imitate them. Most of us mirror successful people lives or work consciously or subconsciously. Some times it may work for us, and some times it may not be.
We don't give respect to imitation but how it's not possible to copy others. There are 7.7 billion people in the world. The probability of not copying others is 0.00000001. There is no such thing called out of the box thinking, all of our ideas inspired by the existing ideas (Newton and Einstien are exceptional).
The solution for every problem, over time, will get saturated and reaches its epitome. Once it arrives, it will become the only solution for the same problem all over the world. Therefore the solution for the new same problem is the solution which is already available.
Example, ancient humans had a problem to protect themselves from heat, cold and rain. They have used animal skin and vegetation as clothing. Based on the geographical location, human clothing evolved and reached its epitome as Trousers. Now all countries adopted Trousers as comfortable clothing.
In business, it is ubiquitous to imitate the things which were worked for a similar kind of companies.
In October 2013, Snapchat introduced my story feature, which allows users to compose snaps into storylines, accessible to all of their friends. This feature became the most frequently-used function of the service with over one billion views per day.
In August 2016, Instagram launched Instagram Stories, a feature that allows users to take photos and, add them to their Instagram story. Images uploaded to a user's story expire after 24 hours. The media noted the feature was similar to Snapchat.
On February 2017, WhatsApp launched a new Status feature similar to Snapchat and Instagram stories.
A year ago, YouTube launched its own Stories, called 'Reels.' The feature very much inspired by rival social apps like Snapchat and Instagram.
Imitation of stories from Snapchat worked for Instagram and WhatsApp but not working for Youtube because of its business model. Youtube primarily focuses on entertainment whereas Instagram and WhatsApp focus on social and personal connections.
The reason we born is to make the difference, but how much hard we try, we copy in one or another way, same applies in business also. Some times imitation may become the only solution to survive.
There is nothing wrong in imitation when already the best solution available why we should waste our time to reinvent the second best solution.
"It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to."
― Jean-Luc Godard