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What is the commercial value of an idea?

Ideas are floating around in the gazillions. Most are irrelevant, some are cute, others nifty and a few might even be good or extraordinary. But what commercial value does an idea have if it is not followed up?
If I had friends and if they had any creative brains I am sure many would rant about ideas stolen from them for commercial gain. Well, maybe not many, but some - certainly scaled with the rate of alcohol-intake. Ideas like the one to set up a tool for easy sharing and showing of likes and dislikes in the form of picture, sounds, data and relations over the internet that we know as Facebook. What commercial and social impact would Facebook have today if the alleged thieve (Marc Zuckerberg, if you believe the plausible plot of the movie) would not have cared to steal it?
Would Facebook be such a tremendous success if Marc Zuckerberg wasn't around to push it? Would it be around at all? What about all those mini-facebook lookalikes? Those platforms for special interest groups, students, romance-seekers, political activists. Why does Facebook have so much more bang? Because of Zuckerberg.
You don't have to like him, you can even 'defriend' him. But his role as a catalyst for an otherwise unexplored idea is invaluable. (May anybody please call Marc and tell him of the brilliant concepts I am stashing away in my drawer?)
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