If your advantage is so small that your product can be easily cloned, you are definitely working on a problem that is too small.
Go back and watch a couple SpaceX launches and re-read Peter Thiel's comments on the slowdown in innovation. There are plenty of big problems to solve. The good ones involve contrarian thinking, so are further protected from clones.
Even if you don't want to work on basic advances, at least build a product with network effects. Dropbox and Airbnb aren't rocket science, but their businesses are protected by network effects.
If you're product can be easily cloned but makes a lot of money without any effort, it is a good idea to keep it a secret as long as possible. This way it will take longer for other people to clone it and you will have easy money.
The part that you should keep a secret is that you're idea actually makes money, not the technical part.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with solving small problems, making a lot of money relatively, and living a great life.
To Thiel $5 million in wealth isn't a big deal, nor is $500k in annual income. It is to nearly everybody else on this planet. You can generate those kinds of results by solving smaller problems on the web / mobile / software.
Go back and watch a couple SpaceX launches and re-read Peter Thiel's comments on the slowdown in innovation. There are plenty of big problems to solve. The good ones involve contrarian thinking, so are further protected from clones.
Even if you don't want to work on basic advances, at least build a product with network effects. Dropbox and Airbnb aren't rocket science, but their businesses are protected by network effects.