Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

Tesla definitely established that there's a market for these cars but I imagine they're gonna run into lots of trouble once car companies that actually know what they're doing horn in on that market

Uber does nok make anything people want, though...

Uber does nok make anything people want, though...

― Frederik B, Friday, August 16, 2019 1:22 PM (thirty-one seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

Of course it does -- it created an easier and better way to get taxi service. While I rarely take taxis, I live in an area where it's very hard to get a cab or even order a car service, yet ubers are abundant. I don't like the company, but the reality is they created a useful product that people use. The problem is that if they had to actually be profitable they'd have to charge so much money for it that it would no longer be worth using.

I mean, every time we go to the airport, for example, we use one of these apps (I actually typically use Juno or Lyft but they're the same concept). Every time I have to do work-related car service, I use one of these apps (no need to save the receipt!).

esla definitely established that there's a market for these cars but I imagine they're gonna run into lots of trouble once car companies that actually know what they're doing horn in on that market

― frogbs, Friday, August 16, 2019 1:20 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Opposite is true -- Tesla is eating the lunch of the established car companies who have entered this market. Tesla figured out how to make it cool. They just can't make it profitable.

^^^

The next tech crash is going to be rough for california. It’s totally dependent on the income taxes of outlier high earners. State revenues are materially affected by a handful of IPOs each year.

Afaik Uber didn't so much create a new way of hailing cabs - it's just an app, would be the same as ordering online - as they spent 20 billion dollar subsidizing unprofitable rides. And in countries like Denmark, where they've had to deal with normal regulation, they have left the market. The only thing that would make them slightly profitable was them being able to pay lower wages by saying it was a 'ride share' app rather than a taxi company.

yeah, seems to me that the uber model is destroy the competition - i.e. cab companies - and then ratchet up the prices once ride-sharing is all that will be available

uber can hurt public mass transit investment, but that's a very long-term process

the barrier to someone re-entering the taxi business once uber ratchets up the prices is pretty low tho, especially since uber would by then have destroyed all regulations

Not doubting that these tech companies might crater, but how big a share of the economy do the Ubers and Spotifys really represent?

they indirectly fuel a lot of real estate transactions

Oh, I forgot the really obvious one: Tumblr going from 1.1 billion to being sold for less than three million in no time, basically

But again, Verizon's market cap is $233B

Tumblr going from 1.1 billion to being sold for less than three million in no time, basically

"Let's buy a porn site and force people to delete all the porn! We'll make billions!"

Opposite is true -- Tesla is eating the lunch of the established car companies who have entered this market.

I looked this up and wow, Tesla 3 really does have a bigger share of the market than the Nissan Leaf or the Chevy Bolt/Volt, cars which I feel like I see more of on the street. I don't quite get it. Everything I've read suggests that the new Teslas are just ... not that good. But the numbers are the numbers.

decent chance Musk is buying them himself and parking them in his backyard

thing about most tech companies is their actual product is rarely what they’re offering consumers

ubers nutso valuation was in large part because of its dynamic pricing calculation.

i rly feel like ilx missed out by not clubbing together to buy tumblr when we had the chance

that's because their actual product is private customer data, in many cases
xp

but that one guy who wrote an article told spotify that their product...IS MUSIC

yeah, seems to me that the uber model is destroy the competition - i.e. cab companies - and then ratchet up the prices once ride-sharing is all that will be available

― bookmarkflaglink (jim in vancouver), Friday, August 16, 2019 6:39 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

its the amazon business model.. try to hang in there as long as you can while you generate massive losses and hopefully one day you become a monopoly. the startups are funded by rich investors who have more money than god so they can afford to keep flushing it down the toilet until they get one investment that pays out and makes it all worth while.

thats my uneducated observation at least

wellll amazon has for some years now been in a position where they could generate profits whenever they want to by laying off arbitrary numbers of software developers working on things that do not matter whatsoever, but they keep hiring those people and leasing office space in order to avoid having to return cash to investors

~disruption~

AWS as a division is profitable (and a non trivial fraction of total amazon revenue), no? xp

that also. In a different time AWS would've been spun off years ago, investors would've demanded it be unyoked from the retail business probably.

Right so where are the useless engineers? In the retail division?

Yeah like there are huge teams of people developing features nobody asked for and nobody will use. but to be clear AWS also launches two dozen services a year that don’t have an appreciable number customers.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ECWqfbCXUAAU-Ws.jpg

Wait what?

wut

corporations are people

obnoxious, silly rich people

Early this year, WeWork unveiled its new corporate brand: We Co. It then sought to acquire the trademark to “we.” The name was owned by We Holdings LLC, which manages some of the founders’ stock and other assets. WeWork said it paid the founders’ company $5.9 million for “we” this year, based on a valuation determined by a third-party appraisal. WeWork legally changed the company name last month.

the twist is that WeWork CEO Adam Neumann owns We Holdings LLC, so he paid himself $5.9m for this trademark

the saudis dumping money into softbank dumping money into we co. dumping money into its ceo's bank account for funsies.

Cui bono tho

This is good

https://stratechery.com/2019/the-wework-ipo/

I am suspending my policy of not reading random articles people link to so that I can consume every take on this batshit We IPO

already read it

i have to read all the articles

i've decided that i will not be devoting any portion of my considerable budget for tech investments to WeWork. however, i do want to look into the possibility of leasing half a square foot in a nearby office, see what i can do with it

could grow a small snake plant

I might be wrong, but I don't think Amazon ever operated at Uber levels of just burning through billions of dollars in losses every single year -- I thought they used to just operate at a narrow loss because they were plowing everything back into growing the business and using low prices to gain market share.

correct

So...today, then.

“I have no idea how the president thinks he can order companies to stop working with China. I’m baffled,” said Brian Riedl, a budget expert at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.

Are you? Are you really? Maybe you are a FUCKING IDIOT

Ever deeper into the shitbin we go

Looks to me like fund managers didn't want to be holding long over the weekend, just in case something unexpected drops. At this point, they are nervous as hell.

cartoon reality every fucking day now, don't know how much more I can stand

as I like to tell people there's not a rule that says you have to pay close attention, it won't help anything if you do

ain't that the truth

at least now we'll get to find out who the obedient patriotic companies are