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Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

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Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#861

Post by jacobsenscott »

delazeur wrote: post #815
Retra wrote: post #762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there could be legitimate reason that it couldn't scale up, but... "necessity is the mother of invention" and I don't feel it should be left at that. (Particularly on HN, where people seem to take inordinate pride in their ability to find ways of scaling things up.)

Right. If someone is going to make that argument, they should be expected to at least explain why something won't scale up.

Iceland is demographically homogenous (over 90% Icelandic), and 64% of their population lives in one city. It is fairly easy for that kind of grouping of people to reach agreement on things because they have a lot of common interests, and a shared history and culture.

As you "scale up" in diversity, population, and geographic distribution the set of things people can agree on falls off dramatically.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#862

Post by deong »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #861
delazeur wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. If someone is going to make that argument, they should be expected to at least explain why something won't scale up.

Iceland is demographically homogenous (over 90% Icelandic), and 64% of their population lives in one city. It is fairly easy for that kind of grouping of people to reach agreement on things because they have a lot of common interests, and a shared history and culture. As you "scale up" in diversity, population, and geographic distribution the set of things people can agree on falls off dramatically.

I love how people like to explain things to me as though a wikipedia article presents something over actual knowledge and experience.

Iceland has a very divisive political system at the moment. The ruling government has been a coalition of the Progressive and Independence parties, roughly the european versions of the social conservative and pro-business factions of the Republican party respectively. Though it should be said that no one in Iceland really touches quite how regressive American social conservatives are. And, of course, being (sort-of) Scandinavian, there's a massively strong Social Democrat/Pirate/Left-green contingent in the Reykjavik area that can't stand the agenda of the main ruling parties.

Iceland doesn't function because they manage to get people to agree more than Americans do. There are something like 13 political parties in an average election, and they stand in bitter opposition to one another across a huge variety of issues. Iceland functions because they make their government function anyway. Nothing about being small makes it easier for two opposing parties to somehow figure out a way to get the damned bills paid. You could replace the entire American republic with Donald Trump and Barack Obama, and we'd get no more done than we do today, because the government isn't trying to solve problems. They're trying to preserve whatever problem is most plausibly the fault of the other party.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#863

Post by sqeaky »

wand3r wrote: post #772
sqeaky wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think game dev is the way it is because so many romanticize game development. A ton of grads fresh out of college want to get in and are competing for a the limited (but large) amount of work it takes to make a game. The big a-hole studios realize this and charge sub-prime wages because after they burn a dev out there will be another to replace them still starry-eyed from a childhood playing games. I have read seve…

Also, I think it is hard to get product market fit. You pretty much have to release a whole game before you know if it's successful. Unless you are established it is much harder to bootstrap. You can release a level and optimize but games are super hard. I agree there is the romantic factor in play as well. You have a lot of supply of devs and a random walk of success stories.

Making a game, is hard to fit the market???

Most people who are super excited to make games are gamers themselves, and it seems to me that most gamers are pretty open minded. In my own research it seems to me that most indie titles that "don't suck" turn at least a modest profit. Don't suck needs to be defined objectively, but not being riddled with bugs (unless that's the point [Goat simulator, Desert Bus]), having a consistent even if primitive art style and being fun to at least some gamers is a reasonable definition.

The breakaway successes like Minecraft and Super Meat Boy should not be examples. Better example are Rovio's 50 games before Angry Birds. They made enough money to live on and make the next title while having a decent but not affluent lifestyle.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#864

Post by lkbm »

joering2 wrote: post #672
mikekij wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I love Amazon prime, and also love Slack. But I fear the day when all of the "good companies" end up being owned by one corporate overlord.

That's nothing new... Media: http://libreria.sourceforge.net/library/Free_Culture/images/... Food: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7KY4dEnHmnc/U9bkkriu8hI/AAAAAAAAD9...

A large share of media companies owned by a single conglomerate.

A large share of food companies owned by a single conglomerate.

A large share of retail, cloud hosting, and online messaging owned by a single conglomerate.

You're right that there's long been some serious consolidation in sectors, but those two examples seem a little different from Amazon grabbing up large portions of multiple sectors.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#865

Post by SubuSS »

s73ver wrote: post #739
SubuSS wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You keep referring to the 'moneyed' as an alien entity when in reality it is a lot of index funds, pension funds, 401ks and what not. Are you saying there should be less/no return for investing your money? If so, how do you suppose we incentivize investments?

I didn't say there should be no return. Suggesting that is quite dishonest on your part. I merely stated that the bulk of reward should go to those who actually DO something, not those who's only contribution is already having money. Of course they should get a return on that money. It just shouldn't be the bulk of the reward.

Boy aren't you looking to get offended :). I said less OR no return, since it wasn't explicit in your comments. Picking only parts that suit you is ginormously dishonest if my logical OR seems 'quite dishonest' to you :)

But investors are actually doing something as well - they are putting their hard earned money towards a venture. And as it stands today, we have more need for capital than 'actual work'. So it gets rewarded more. In simplistic terms, If you want an investor to put his money into a business you are starting instead of buying up rare resources or hoarding his cash, you give up equity. And hence their reward are relative to the money they put in.

I was just trying to see if you have any alternative plans to encourage such investment. This is back to basics economics as I know, but I don't know much there. Hence my query.

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