It shouldn't necessarily be "much much" better. Imo, just slightly better would be enough to win the competition. It wasn't like this before the Internet because living in one part of the world people had had little to no idea of what's going on in other parts, and even if they knew about something being better in other country, they couldn't use it. So, indeed, you had to have something much much better to draw the attention of potential customers from other countries. Now you can just copy something nice, improve it a little, and you are the winner.