I am seeing more and more "ripping" of websites; straight up copying others ideas, designs etc... Almost 0 rules are being followed, except between big sites aka big businesses. Is it the increase in teen webmasters? Is it the increase in the ability to make good money on the internet? Is the ability to make big money attracting more so to say crowds of garbage? All in all I think that ripping, spamming, or just copying in general won't get you anywhere; becase while you might make a little you won't get anywhere in the long run. The original creators will always get more traffic and rank higher then you. Whats your stand on this?
Like you said original site creators that know how to market their site will always do better than the copy cats.
people have been copying other peoples business models since...well..a long time. On the net it can just be over-obvious because people are refusing to add their own creativity (after all, if their new copy cat business tanks, what do they lose?)