My gut reaction to this is that real businesses are hard to copy. If you look at the most successful online businesses of the last 10 years (Facebook, Google, Zynga, Linkedin), none of them have had successful copies.
But if you - in an afternoon or a long weekend - create a web site as a small project, expect a lot of people to do that too. Some do it for fun, and some may actually be serious about competing with you. But if you have passion for it, and they don't, it won't matter.
I look at the stuff Patrick does (BCC), and it looks kinda hard to really copy. He's open about his processes, challenges, and all the work he put into it (particularly marketing and generating repeat business). I may be bold enough to say it's easy to copy the technology and hard to copy the business.
But if you - in an afternoon or a long weekend - create a web site as a small project, expect a lot of people to do that too. Some do it for fun, and some may actually be serious about competing with you. But if you have passion for it, and they don't, it won't matter.
I look at the stuff Patrick does (BCC), and it looks kinda hard to really copy. He's open about his processes, challenges, and all the work he put into it (particularly marketing and generating repeat business). I may be bold enough to say it's easy to copy the technology and hard to copy the business.