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Priceline now worth $100B

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Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#121

Post by splonk »

atombender wrote: post #24
throwaway91111 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually no. Why is it so popular? It seems to have fewer features than hipmunk.... Not to knock them, though, it's a hard problem to solve well from an interface and integrations perspective.

Personally, I reach for Booking.com because they're simply better than most competitors. They have a huge inventory of hotels, and they have a functional, fairly responsive search interface that isn't annoying. The last part is important — there's little in terms of popups, ads, intrusive upsells, flashy UI elements, and so on. It's not the most modern, but it's very well optimized towards finding stuff. For example,…

Note that the Booking.com reviews are also less obviously spammable than TripAdvisor, since you have to actually have to make a booking to review a hotel. TA reviews in general have a lot of sampling bias involved from solicited reviews (or just flat out fake reviews).

On the other hand, do note that the Booking.com review scale is skewed - it's seems to actually be a 2.5-10 scale. The median rating is something like 8.1, so keep that in mind if you're using the review scores.

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#122

Post by sdy »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #44
wheaties wrote: post #16

This is stupid. Really. Here we are in a world where the companies that own the assets (you know, the things that cost a lot of money) are worth less than the things that don't own anything. This doesn't seem "right" or "fair" in the sense that Priceline should be a middleman, unable to exercise any or all pricing power because it does not control the assets producing the revenue. I wonder how long this can last?

Priceline doesn't have pricing power, they are just reaping the rewards of their branding and whatnot. There may also be some value for the consumer in that Priceline can consolidate their travel plans for flights/hotel/rental car in one place. However, I find I get better service when I transact directly with the vendor, whether it be hotels, airlines, or rental car agencies. If you want the lowest prices on all the…

Is this a joke? I searched roomkey on a couple of marriott hotels and they offered $5 off (about 2% off). I got much better price on priceline.

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#123

Post by jimmykennedy »

misterbwong wrote: post #112

If you were to tell a non-HNer that Kayak, Booking, Priceline, CheapFlights, OpenTable, and other large websites are worth 100B combined , I don't think they would even blink an eye. Come here and the top discussion thread is about how little Priceline does, how they're "just middlemen", and that they don't add any value. It's clear that HN (and techies as a whole, I assume) highly discounts the value of users, marke…

"just middlemen" == abstracting away complexity

All you have to do is reword it in programmer talk and HN gets it.

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#124

Post by raugustinus »

scottLobster wrote: post #99
stcredzero wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Internet has facilitated the age of the middleman. Owning stuff is expensive. Therefore, we should be looking for industries where connecting buyers to sellers is the big question! (Or owners to leasers, or lenders to borrowers.) We should also be looking at why apps that are supposed to do this connecting fail.

We should also be wondering about the lack of incentive to be a producer/owner when being a middleman is so comparatively lucrative. If capital and talent starts shifting to middlemen in pursuit of higher returns it could cause a lot of markets to stagnate with only the big players having the resources to make a profit off of producing.

Thank you for this interesting thought. My first thought was this. Why wouldn't I make furniture and sell directly to customers. Which is something I've been thinking of doing. One problem is that the computer desks I'm thinking about might not be what people want. Why? They will be expensive and it seems like the whole world thinks the IKEA desks are what they really want/need. Check some YouTube tech reviewers, the build game PC's worth thousands but they're nearly always put on IKEA desks because they're cheap (ish).

I guess marketing is at play there.

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#125

Post by dinglebert1234 »

wheaties wrote: post #16

This is stupid. Really. Here we are in a world where the companies that own the assets (you know, the things that cost a lot of money) are worth less than the things that don't own anything. This doesn't seem "right" or "fair" in the sense that Priceline should be a middleman, unable to exercise any or all pricing power because it does not control the assets producing the revenue. I wonder how long this can last?

Why shouldn't the people who own the silicon and aluminum not get all of Apple's revenue?

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#126

Post by komali2 »

perfectstorm wrote: post #65
lobster_johnson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from Booking.com, they also own KAYAK, Cheapflights, Rentalcars.com and Open Table (the restaurant booking app).

TIL. I usually use Kayak and Booking.com (because you've the option to pay when you checkout). This comment made me realize that their only other major competitor is Expedia (fun fact: Expedia originated from Microsoft).

I don't know how skyscanner continues to manage to fly under the radar. I've never found cheaper prices on any other aggregator.

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#127

Post by xrange »

misterbwong wrote: post #112

If you were to tell a non-HNer that Kayak, Booking, Priceline, CheapFlights, OpenTable, and other large websites are worth 100B combined , I don't think they would even blink an eye. Come here and the top discussion thread is about how little Priceline does, how they're "just middlemen", and that they don't add any value. It's clear that HN (and techies as a whole, I assume) highly discounts the value of users, marke…

>If you were to tell a non-HNer that Kayak, Booking, Priceline, CheapFlights, OpenTable, and other large websites are worth 100B combined, I don't think they would even blink an eye.

...is that because you don't think non-HNer's don't have an appreciation for how much something like Walmart is worth (~$250B)? Or because you think they believe that $100B is a reasonable valuation?

>Really is fascinating how different perspectives can be.

My personal experience is that "most people" wouldn't recognize that Kayak, Booking, CheapFlights, and OpenTable were businesses / websites, let alone use them.

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#128

Post by rifung »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #73
Fej wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing he doesn't really need the money at this point, especially given his age.

I really don't understand this line of thinking. Are old people incapable of spending money? Is what they chose to do with capital of less consequence? Even if they do have one foot in the grave, they have a right to legacy.

I believe the line of thinking is that assuming they would have the same yearly expenses of a younger person, they have less total expenses because they have, on average, less years left to live and thus spend money on.

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#129

Post by komali2 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #105
samfisher83 wrote: post #87

So many of the travel sites are owned by Priceline. Here is wikis list: Booking.com Priceline.com Agoda.com Kayak.com Cheapflights Rentalcars.com momondo OpenTable I am surprised they haven't bought Expedia or the other major sites.

Newsflash: Almost all of the travel sites you've heard of are owned by Expedia or Priceline. Priceline couldn't buy Expedia because it would get killed by antitrust concerns. Expedia also owns Travelocity, Orbitz, Hotwire, Hotels.com, VRBO, HomeAway, has a majority stake in Trivago, etc. Basically the only big travel sites not owned by Expedia or Priceline are TripAdvisor (previously spun off from Expedia) and AirBnB…

And Skyscanner! Lone little skyscanner. Still my favorite.

Re: Priceline now worth $100B

#130

Post by ozim »

misterbwong wrote: post #112

If you were to tell a non-HNer that Kayak, Booking, Priceline, CheapFlights, OpenTable, and other large websites are worth 100B combined , I don't think they would even blink an eye. Come here and the top discussion thread is about how little Priceline does, how they're "just middlemen", and that they don't add any value. It's clear that HN (and techies as a whole, I assume) highly discounts the value of users, marke…

I don't need 99% of software written in the world. Then I know 80% of everything is crap. Try to sell me something I will be polite but some people are not.

I am tech guy but when I think of above I know I need salesman so he sell stuff that I build. Also you cannot scale sales infinitely so having middleman and getting 5% and not having middleman and getting 0 is win situation.

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