&gt;  For an engineer, the problem can always be solved in new and more efficient ways, as long as new techniques appear. But from a product design standpoint, the optimum is hit when the solution for all cases is automated into defaults and a minimum of configuration, and that leads to characteristically different products emerging to solve problems that are subsets of the old ones, rather than feature requests piling up forever.<p>I agree with this, but it&#x27;s not really the point I&#x27;m making. I&#x27;m saying that the problem you&#x27;re trying to solve matters. Most often people reinvent the wheel because they aren&#x27;t trying to solve the problem wheels solve: they&#x27;re just trying to make money, and if you&#x27;re reinventing the wheel to make money you&#x27;re no better than a cheap scammer. Your intentions might be better, because people think capitalism works, and that money means you must be solving a real problem, but that makes little difference to the people whose money you&#x27;re taking while providing them no value.