Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook should be broken up

[tshile]

1 hour ago, PleaseBlitz said:

Would the iPhone be the dominant phone if it wasn't the first smartphone?

how do you definte smartphone?

 

because by what i believe to be the definition, they weren't the first. or the second. or the third....

[PleaseBlitz]

1 minute ago, No Excuses said:

 

 

Something as dumb as raw water got millions in VC funding. 

 

And this isn’t much different:

 

 

 

I'm pretty sure you are agreeing with me.  Certainly raw water as a product is ****ing stupid.  But so are cigarettes and they made hundreds of billions of dollars.  People are stupid and therefore stupid products aren't necessarily losers.  Tesla's products are ****ing awesome, they just need to be able to build enough of them.  

[zoony]

4 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

ROI is the only factor that matters to investors.  They don't necessarily give a **** how much a company is going to make THIS YEAR, unless that is their chosen timeline

 

So you absolutely agree.

 

Home depot cant put profits on hold for ten years, hemorage cash and assets so they can build an online platform.  Investors would never allow it.  Investors in amazon encourage it.

 

Maybe read the book i linked above you would probably enjoy it

[PleaseBlitz]

2 minutes ago, zoony said:

 

I edited my post to change value to dividends, guess i should have been more clear but never imagined anyone could possibly think i was referencing roi when speaking about a companies valuation

 

Ask yourself what would happen to wal marts stock if they returned negative 50 percent profit margin.  It would tank.  Now ask yourself what would happen to amazons... it wou,d go thru the roof.

 

Yet you are insisting the investment communities treat them the same.  Ok, we will agree to disagree.

 

Here is the fundamental difference.  WalMart sells things made by others.  They are a retailer and nothing else.  That is all they will ever be.  Profit margin is the only thing that makes them money.

 

Amazon does a zillion different things, including retail, but not limited to retail.  Many of those lines of business, like their video streaming and production business, web services, advertising, server farms, drones, supermarkets, etc etc and who know what the **** else they are doing, are still very much in the startup phase.  Investors are willing to bet on each of those new lines of business because Amazon has a demonstrated ability to turn them into gold.  THAT is where the excitement by investors comes from.  And those infant lines of business bring their overall margins down, even though their retail margins are probably in line with WalMart. 

[No Excuses]

4 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

I'm pretty sure you are agreeing with me.  Certainly raw water as a product is ****ing stupid.  But so are cigarettes and they made hundreds of billions of dollars.  People are stupid and therefore stupid products aren't necessarily losers.  Tesla's products are ****ing awesome, they just need to be able to build enough of them.  

 

Yup. 

 

With a lot of these tech companies, a substantial reason for continued investment in them is innovation. 

[tshile]

3 minutes ago, zoony said:

Ask yourself what would happen to wal marts stock if they returned negative 50 percent profit margin.  It would tank.  Now ask yourself what would happen to amazons... it wou,d go thru the roof.

 

this seems like really basic analysis.

 

amazon's low-to-negative profit margins were, and are, because the companies stated goal is to reinvest that money into the company; not return it to anyone else.

 

if walmart's stated goal was that, when investors got in, they'd be in the same boat.

 

but because walmart's stated goal is profit, if they started running low-to-negative profit margins yes, they would get hammered in the market.

 

costco has a very similar model to amazon, thought not quite as extreme. Costo's profit margins are  almost always 1/2 that of its competitors. Because Costco doesn't want ****ty employees and pays people well to work there and reinvests their money into themselves (employees, perks, etc.) By all accounts Costco is actually a really good company to work for - and the people i know that worked at Amazon said it's great to work there (though can be a bit weird sometimes.)

 

you argument doesn't seem very well reasoned here... 

 

side note - apparently starbucks (when you work at the corporate level) is also awesome to work at. they really take care of their people there.

[PleaseBlitz]

6 minutes ago, zoony said:

 

 

Home depot cant put profits on hold for ten years, hemorage cash and assets so they can build an online platform.  Investors would never allow it.  Investors in amazon encourage it.

 

Home Depot is a retailer and nothing else and are as built out as they are ever going to get.

 

Also, Lowes is way better. 

Edited February 2, 2018 by PleaseBlitz

[tshile]

7 minutes ago, zoony said:

Home depot cant put profits on hold for ten years, hemorage cash and assets so they can build an online platform.  Investors would never allow it.  Investors in amazon encourage it.

they don't encourage them to hemorrhage cash.

 

they encourage them to invest in themselves because history shows they're pretty good at that.

 

if amazon started having products and initiatives flop far more often than take off, that would change. but they seem to do really well, even when they start launching things into space.

 

tesla, on the other hand, has investors that encourage it to hemorrhage cash.

[zoony]

4 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

Home Depot is a retailer and nothing else and are as built out as they are ever going to get.

 

Also, Lowes is way better. 

 

Actually i point to THD because they have done an incredible job transforming into an omni channel enterprise.  I think they spent the GDP of equador to do it.  It hurt them short term but they are much better positioned for the next decade.

 

Lowes will be out in 10 years

[tshile]

home depot is the walmart of home improvement.

 

they got everything but most of it is junk quality.

 

i hate going there almost as much as i hate going to walmart. the people who work at home depot don't suck, so long as you don't need them for actual advice on how to do anything. they're at least pleasant and will open a register to check you out if lines are long.

 

side note: every time i go to wegmans the checkout goes 10x faster than the lines would lead you to believe they would go. when you go to walmart it's 10x slower.

 

quality of employees matters. seems to be related to how you treat them.

[PleaseBlitz]

1 minute ago, zoony said:

 

Actually i point to THD because they have done an incredible job transforming into an omni channel enterprise.  I think they spent the GDP of equador to do it.  It hurt them short term but they are much better positioned for the next decade.

 

Lowes will be out in 10 years

 

They should probably let consumer's know.  

 

Anyways, point is Home Depot is going to continue to sell tools and **** right?  They are getting into, like, shooting ****ing rockets into space or GMO foods right?  

[tshile]

has anyone else noticed walmart's logo looks like an asshole?

 

 

 

 

[tshile]

man I can't find the picture, i found it last time I was showing osmeone...

 

if you watch the Walmart Shop Online ads they have the classic computer mouse icon where it's a hand with the index finger pointing up

and they move it right over their logo

 

if you can't figure out what that looks like just use your imagination a little harder.

 

i can't figure out if the walmart branding people are in on this as a joke or not.

[tshile]

a hah! i found it in my allo chat

 

[Kosher Ham]

33 minutes ago, tshile said:

how do you definte smartphone?

 

because by what i believe to be the definition, they weren't the first. or the second. or the third....

25 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

Home Depot is a retailer and nothing else and are as built out as they are ever going to get.

 

Also, Lowes is way better. 

 

They certainly were not the first or second. They did use other tech and make it better. 

 

Home Depot could be more, it is simply not their model. Ehh... Lowes is pretty much the same. 

[Kilmer17]

Home Depot?  Lowes?  Nah.  Shop local.  I'll pay the 20 percent more to go to Cunninghams hardware.

[PleaseBlitz]

Kilmer be swinging that artisanal hammer at his bespoke stone-forged nails. 

[Kilmer17]

7 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

Kilmer be swinging that artisanal hammer at his bespoke stone-forged nails. 

I go for the local bee honey and overpriced local fudge.

[The Evil Genius]

2 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

They should probably let consumer's know.  

 

Anyways, point is Home Depot is going to continue to sell tools and **** right?  They are getting into, like, shooting ****ing rockets into space or GMO foods right?  

 

Wait til zoony finds out about Home Depot and Tesla's new partnership.

 

 

Edited February 2, 2018 by The Evil Genius

[AsburySkinsFan]

On 2/1/2018 at 1:04 PM, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

I'll watch the video out of curiosity.  I hope that an NYU professor actually has some good points rather than some anti big business socialist agenda. 

 

Edit:  I started laughing at the part about a minute in where he says that our brains are so big that we're expelled from our mothers because our brains are too big and we're born prematurely.  Get the **** outta here.  His McDonald's analogy is pretty poor.  

 

Yep that’s exactly what this is. NYU anti-capitalist. I am no fan of Ayn Rand but you just know that Marx is on his bookshelf.

The McDonalds analogy was horrid.

McDonalds supplies all of the ingredients, assembles them, packages them, and ships them. They are responsible for the ingredients, as well as the mechanism of delivery. Social media platforms provide little to no content, we do. This guys thinking would sue New York Central Park Authority because someone got food poisoning from the picnic lunch they brought and ate there. 

 

That’s when I turned it off, if an NYU professor can’t do better than that in the first 10 mins of hos presentation then I’m not interested. 

 

I think there are arguments to be made for breaking up massive companies, he just didn’t make them.

[Spaceman Spiff]

22 hours ago, AsburySkinsFan said:

Yep that’s exactly what this is. NYU anti-capitalist. I am no fan of Ayn Rand but you just know that Marx is on his bookshelf.

The McDonalds analogy was horrid.

McDonalds supplies all of the ingredients, assembles them, packages them, and ships them. They are responsible for the ingredients, as well as the mechanism of delivery. Social media platforms provide little to no content, we do. This guys thinking would sue New York Central Park Authority because someone got food poisoning from the picnic lunch they brought and ate there. 

 

That’s when I turned it off, if an NYU professor can’t do better than that in the first 10 mins of hos presentation then I’m not interested. 

 

I think there are arguments to be made for breaking up massive companies, he just didn’t make them.

 

Exactly correct.  You get to mostly choose your social media experience by following and interacting with those that you want to interact with.

[Kosher Ham]

29 minutes ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

Exactly correct.  You get to mostly choose your social media experience by following and interacting with those that you want to interact with.

 

Yes, and no, as far as social media. 

Glad that I don't have, or involve myself with that nonsense unless someone else shows it to me. 

This site is my only social media. 

Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat...have stalkers... Not cool. 

 

The thing with a lot of social media is the amount of things that are shared. 

 

Sorry to take it off topic. 

[AsburySkinsFan]

3 minutes ago, Kosher Ham said:

 

The thing with a lot of social media is the amount of things that are shared. 

You still choose what you see, or rather who you see. Unfriend/unfollow are tools that people use to ignore people who they want to ignore. It’s interactive tv, don’t want to see something? Easy enough.

[Kosher Ham]

23 minutes ago, AsburySkinsFan said:

You still choose what you see, or rather who you see. Unfriend/unfollow are tools that people use to ignore people who they want to ignore. It’s interactive tv, don’t want to see something? Easy enough.

 

Again. Yes and No. 

I share a picture with you and you happen to be friends with someone that I don't know, or am not friends with and you share it. 

I simply don't put it out there... so it is not available to see. 

 

I have witnessed the abuse of it. The dark side of something that is supposed to be fun. 

If I called you or even hung out with you... I wouldn't ever show pictures or locations without talking to you about it first. 

The amount of so called celebrities/heroes/superstars,  that I have met in my life... jaws would drop. 

The only one that I crap on regularly is Chris Berman.  Ironically, he was never rude to me, he was just a jackass to everyone else around him. 

 

Daggone it. I'll let this one ride for now. 

[zoony]

If only Goldman Sachs ran commercials with frumpy unattractive hipsters singing along with smiley face emojis, maybe more libs would love them some big finance too.  But in the meantime good to see consistency from the too big to fail crowd.

 

"Hit me again zuckerburg, but this time put some STANK on it"