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Amazon Reports Surge in Profit

wsj.com

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Re: Amazon Reports Surge in Profit

#151

Post by crucifiction »

MichaelGG wrote: post #75
serge2k wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google stronger than Azure?

Google Cloud is amazing. Azure is terrible. Azure js for companies that, 15 years ago, were spending their budget on Windows. Great for "enterprises" that want to "leverage cloud". Azure is slow, expensive, poorly designed (network and SSD designs are just bad), and the real slap to the face is that the management UI Is worse than anything from Windows 8.

"enterprises" that want to "leverage cloud" is where all of the money is. AWS is chasing that dragon too. There is way more money selling cloud stuff to Coca-Cola and GE than to software companies.

Re: Amazon Reports Surge in Profit

#152

Post by laxatives »

ycombobreaker wrote: post #143
laxatives wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should eventually be some time when Amazon does finally cash out, presumably on some timeline as a function of Bezos's mortality. Its unrealistic to be around forever. How many companies last hundreds of years? How many tech companies last decades?

Microsoft is 40 years old. IBM is 100. Some other old companies might not be considered "tech" anymore, but only because their market/product are better defined (e.g. Ford is an auto maker, but the assembly line and the concept of an automobile itself place Ford as the "tech" darling of 110 years ago, IMHO). I think if you don't see old tech companies today, it's because over time their public appearance has quietly…

Survivorship bias. The vast majority of companies die. The vast majority of tech companies die.

Re: Amazon Reports Surge in Profit

#153

Post by nitrogen »

manigandham wrote: post #144
Quinner wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for a publisher. I appreciate quality content. This is a rehashed press release, I shouldn't be expected to pay for it.

Facts are cheap/easy but its still content and you should be expected to pay for it (either via ads or subscriptions). Nothing is free.

In the case of a press release, it's paid for by the company releasing it to the press, so end recipients shouldn't also have to pay as if they were getting an originally produced story.

Re: Amazon Reports Surge in Profit

#154

Post by Joof »

paulddraper wrote: post #88
Quinner wrote: post #42

Why do people link to basic stories like this behind a paywall? If WSJ has an original piece out, fine, but this could've come from any one of a thousand sources. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-28/amazon-sal...

So....block ad blockers and HN screams. "I will pay for content", they say. "I just don't like your 25MB flash ads." Link to crap, and HN screams. "Is journalism dead? This stuff is just click bait. I appreciate good writing and quality content." Put up a paywall and HN screams. "Why u make me pay?!?!?!?"

It's a problem with the model. It's far too much for subscribing to a single site; especially when it's linked to from social media (HN) where it's required to have access to participate in community discussion.

HN will pay for content, but they won't pay under these terms.

Re: Amazon Reports Surge in Profit

#155

Post by bcbrown »

cle wrote: post #76
massysett wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"spearheaded the online retail industry" "Online retail" is not an interesting category even if they did spearhead it. Amazon is nothing more than a catalog retailer, something Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward pioneered eons ago. Shipping goods to consumers out of a warehouse by common carrier is not a new industry.

Neither is leasing out compute resources. The devil's in the details. Scale, convenience, ease of use...

How long has leasing out compute resources been an industry? 1-2 decades? I'm sure there were leases on timesharing systems in the 50s and 60s, but that's still just a half century, and hardly the same industry as AWS.

Re: Amazon Reports Surge in Profit

#156

Post by dredmorbius »

aninhumer wrote: post #147
dredmorbius wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History says it matters. Make the individual item payments small enough, and quite literally, it isn't worth my time to have to decide on the value . You see, transaction costs matter, and the actual price paid itself is a very small component. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_costs Again: the amount of money necessary to eliminate advertising completely is all but inconsequential. The frictions, costs, in…

>Should I really have to decide one hundred times a day if a page was worth reading? No, and the argument I was suggesting is that if the costs were low enough, no one would really need to make those decisions, any more than they need to decide whether running a glass of water is worth the cost. >If I'm rich enough that it's not a concern, just bill me the 0.33% out of my income tax that it would cost to provide this…

Then you're creating a per-page accounting system where you still don't need one, with all the tracking and privacy invasion that entails.

Measure share of readership, and you're largely set.

You're re-iterating (best I can tell) earlier arguments, made and dismissed. HN's "only show the immediate post being replied to", particularly on mobile, makes referencing your GP comments all but impossible, but again: I and others far more intelligent than me have considered and rejected the micropayment arguments and pointed out further inequities they ignore.

Re: Amazon Reports Surge in Profit

#157

Post by bitmapbrother »

gareim wrote: post #70
eva1984 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think momentum wise yes... Google is more a service company than MS, and I believe it is more experienced in cloud technologies.

In terms of market share, Microsoft beats Google handily. In terms of year-over-year revenue growth, Microsoft is also beating Google, although Google's growth is better than I had expected. http://www.datamation.com/cloud-computing/microsoft-and-goog...

A 5% difference is hardly what I would call beating Google handily.

Re: Amazon Reports Surge in Profit

#158

Post by bitmapbrother »

frandroid wrote: post #32
mason55 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they build cloud agnostic software that treats providers as a utility It's like browsers all over again. As long as each provider is offering different things or different implementations of the same thing we will either need to choose one or be forced to go through a lowest common denominator translation layer. MSFT, GOOG, and AMZN are all smart enough to not turn this into a race to the bottom of who can provide…

Well so far MSFT and GOOG are regularly slashing prices to keep up with AMZN's price cuts. So we're in the price war stage still, not much at the differentiation stage.

You have it backwards. It's Google that's slashing prices. The others are begrudgingly reacting.

Re: Amazon Reports Surge in Profit

#160

Post by paulddraper »

theklub wrote: post #122
paulddraper wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So....block ad blockers and HN screams. "I will pay for content", they say. "I just don't like your 25MB flash ads." Link to crap, and HN screams. "Is journalism dead? This stuff is just click bait. I appreciate good writing and quality content." Put up a paywall and HN screams. "Why u make me pay?!?!?!?"

Well HN isn't just one person so yeah you're going to get different responses.

Yes, you're right.

And if a community of educated, well-informed, and frequently like-minded technology professionals can't come to a semblance of consensus about this matter, don't be surprised if the day comes when publishers -- with an audience far more diverse in opinion than HN -- just throw up their hands and do all three: ads, paywalls, and click bait.

I don't mean to point fingers, as much point out an unfortunate reality.

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