Daiso may be one of the first companies to come to mind when thinking of an enterprise threatening local retail stores, emphasizing diversity and low prices. Interestingly, such “New Distribution Dinosaurs” are encroaching on online markets as well, making it difficult for start-up companies to expand their businesses. The online public enemies are, indisputably, NAVER and Kakao, both giant industries of the PC portal website and mobile platforms. These “IT Dinosaurs” literally prey on medium and small-scale companies which, as a result, suffer from the two giants’ reckless business diversification strategies.

           The biggest problem the two IT dinosaurs are causing would come from copying. In fact, the current tyranny of IT dinosaurs seems to be imitation especially practiced on a huge spectrum. Such imitation of already-successful companies can easily triumph over the “IT Sprouts” considering their well-established positions in the market. If the very same service is provided by a company of outstanding brand awareness and credibility, small businesses cannot but lose in the race for customer acquisition. To start with, Kakao took the idea from Toss (convenient online payment service), designing its KakaoPay application in a similar user interface model Toss used. Besides design, KakaoPay added the same user authentication process and especially the “1 won remittance testing”, which was thought of as a unique advantage of Toss. NAVER, the online portal giant, is also dominating the online industry by feeding off creative items of start-up companies. One well-known victim of such tyranny is “Menupan.” Menupan was a hot prospective in its field (introducing restaurants all over the country) until NAVER released “Wingspoon,” a complete replica. Menupan had to fight through floods of deficit, and even though Wingspoon terminated service at last, the actual damage was felt by Menupan.