I interpret the problem a little differently. I don't think the reason people want to copy Google is out of a misguided delusion that their app is going to have the same scale. At least not most of the time. The reason is that software is so bad. Plain and simple. Google is one company whose products seem to be reliable. Most software is a soul-sucking exercise in futility to use them. They error out and do unexpected things randomly. In contrast, Google does a great job in providing a quality experience. People naturally want to know how they do that so well. And to do so at such high scale just adds another layer of impressiveness.