You’ve got the beard, the stylish glasses, the skinny jeans, the vintage t-shirt, and the latest tablet, covered with stickers, slid neatly into a faux-messenger bag. But to a teenager, you just look like another old dude. It’s tough to stay hip. That’s true for people. And that’s true for tech services. That’s one of the reasons why Facebook had to shell out $19 billion on a messaging app. And it’s also a reason why that purchase provides no guarantee that they’ll seem cool to the fickle millions looking for the new, new thing. The New Yorker’s Joshua Hunt provides a look at some amazing stats from the day Whatsapp went down for a few hours: “In the day after WhatsApp’s server outage, its biggest competitors, Telegram and Line, gained five million and two million new users, respectively.”

+ “For Linio, think Amazon for Mexicans. For Zalora, think Zappos for Malaysians. For Easy Taxi, think Uber for Nigerians.” Forget innovation. You want to succeed in tech? Just copy someone else.