Because if you lifted the idea from somewhere else you should disclose that fact, otherwise it comes off a little disingenuous especially in a show HN where many readers might assume that you came up with this independently.
I suppose that's true if you care whether someone came up with something independently. I dont, at all. Nothing is created in a void and my experienxe is that even the most original or clever idea, large or small, has plenty of other instances in existence.
That's not always the case. And obviously only the developer of this knows the truth, so it's really up to ones moral compass, but there is a difference between being inspired by a product to make something new versus literally copying someone else's work with zero impactful changes.
You're either interpreting what I said entirely too literally or maybe I was a bit unclear. If they saw somebody else's implementation of "chapter delivery of ebooks by email" online and then proceeded to roll their own with zero credit to the original creator, that is ethically WRONG. It scares me as a developer myself to see how many people are totally okay with the Mark Pincus approach.
