If your thing looks superficially like existing alternatives, it's hard to get going.

There isn't enough of a gradient to differentiate yourself.

But if your thing has an internal network effect that the other things lack, then over time that network effect will get so much momentum that it obviates everything else.

If you have a secret that creates a new kind of network effect, it all comes down to: does that network effect work?

Even if other people try to talk about your secret and claim it as their own, it will all come to who can execute the secret to create the network effect.

Another downside of making a new thing look like existing things: if you make your thing look like another existing thing, people will assume it works the same way in other dimensions too, which can lead to confusion when it doesn't.