'Not being public' is an 'exclusivity club' ploy to make new members want to join and be apart of the fun.. The Winklevoss Brothers' idea of exclusivity for Harvar / .edu emails helped Facebook similarly with initial growth.
Yep. It's cheap and stupid. Why bother waiting for my pinterest invite when I can sign up for pinspire right now?
Given that network effects are most important for a startup like this, it's quite possible that the clone can overtake the original in a short amount of time.
