You can copy the code.

But then you still have to host it secure it update it support it grow it

And then there’s the harder part: actually understanding the business it exists to serve.

Recreating a piece of software often means you’ve learned what it does, not why it exists. Most of the real work lives outside the repository. Customers. Constraints. Trade-offs. Edge cases. Support load. Compliance. Years of decisions that never made it into the README.

That doesn’t make you incapable. It just means you’re operating from the consumer side, not the builder side.

And that’s fine. Most people start there.

But copying an idea isn’t the same as owning it. The communities behind these products didn’t just write code. They dealt with users, processes, and consequences over time.

That’s the part that’s easy to underestimate

whats your take hn.