we should but then again we shouldn't

‘First mover advantage’, in business/marketing parlance this often means to be the first mover in a market place with a product or service. This would mean that the first mover would have a unique or novelty to offer vis-à-vis an existing service or product. The discrepancy arises when we think that we are the only folks to have thought about this unique or novel idea.
The illusion can be extrapolated in that since it is a unique idea, the key to cash in on this would be to keep the business plan a big secret. I mean if the plan is out, the idea is bust and we are where we started with probably no additional moolah. Fortunately none of these ideas are really unique, I mean the odds that you have stumbled onto something that no other fellow on the globe has yet stumbled upon is unique, but the chances that you are the only one thinking about this idea and no other fellow has thought about that idea is arrogance.
The crux of this thinking, lies not in the idea itself, but the probable proposition that we are so wrapped up on the unique idea thinking that we think this idea would perish if divulged so we keep it all wrapped up in shrink packaging in our head or on the other hand we are paranoid enough to think that it can be cribbed.
The truth is that the idea itself does not make the business. Any veteran business person knows a part of the idea is the execution and luck. I mean by luck, being in the right place doing the right thing at the right time, the chances are pretty bleak that all the right things will happen but then who knows it does, and that’s why it is called 'luck', and so it often appropriately referred to as 'dumb luck'.
Please note, have limited this line of thought to 3 dimensions, (right thing - right place - right time), I don’t know how the physicists would look at ‘dumb luck’, in anywhere from 4 to 10 dimensions, which makes the chances of luck by itself improbable, but then it is probable and it still is dumbfounding.
For those of us who disagree in shrouding the business plan in secrecy;
1. Think on research, the key would be to divulge research findings, so if there are errors these are pointed out right away by the research community. An extension would be if the research is right, then the right step would be to publicize it so the research can be extrapolated to some benefit through private/public funding for a benefit.
2. open source software: A developer allows users to use the software freely, and if there are any bugs he calls for a feedback. A cornucopia of users with diverse backgrounds are looking at the same information in a million ways, while if the developer had kept the software to himself/herself he would be look at the software through his own tunnel vision. (Linux)
3. ‘wikipedia’- a large collaborative knowledge effort on information. There is a chance that the information can be prejudiced by a collaborator as there are no filters or screens on the collaborative, but I would like to think that this is a hitch which will be flecked out soon.
4. If truly the first mover advantage holds the key then market leaders today would be the inventors of the idea themselves.
A. Google was not the first search engine.
B. Nikon is not the first camera maker.
C. Nokia is not the first cellular phone maker.

We have a caveat though, Intellectual Property.
IP works on keeping an intellectual know how or tech walled up restraining access.
Intellectual Property was actually created to promote the creation of more ideas but what it does is create artificial scarcity. It gives power to a few and we are aware how power in the hands of a few pans out.
We have had a Magna Carta that restricted the power of the monarchy precisely on the similar grounds of too much vested power, perhaps we need something akin that can restrict the power on IP.
Maybe this will be so in time, if monarchy is gone and all that stands today is a notional figurehead, there is a strong likelihood that IP would disappear too.

We could look at IP in the light of socialism and this is one of the chief arguments towards an egalitarian society. Essentially Socialism is no more and no less than a criticism of the idea of property in the light of the public good. Society, therefore, is from its beginning a mitigation of ownership. Ownership is rooted in our instincts than in our reasons, and just as in the past when communities grew, man realised that he couldn't have the mountain, the valley, the stream and the plain all in his land, ergo the old instincts brought forth reason and man was ready to compromise with his neighbour on ownership. Man was ready to do this as he felt he wanted to settle down live socially and not have to fight for square inch, to an extent the old war of the continents were in a way an expression of the instinct of owndership, but as man has begun to settle down, he finds it a nuisance. Largely this is on account of developments, education and economics. Developments and education are levelling the field for countries to trade freely. These changes are reducing disparity, what we have to do is identify the caveat as we have the benefit of history.

IP is a right of instinct, in time reason will displace instinct, rather its ownership will be mitigated just as we have lived on the priniciples of compromise in a community.