Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 245 posts

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#21

Post by dweekly »

arcbyte wrote: post #12
andrewjrangel wrote: post #4

I am curious if this will end with a "bubble-burst" or a slow burn like twitter has experienced. Surely the money has to dry up sometime? It is too bad that none of these companies create any kind of net good for society like a startup that pays you over minimum wage to clean up a park or sort recycling.

> Surely the money has to dry up sometime? Yup, this fall. By the close of 2018 all the world's central banks will be in quantitative tightening after having spent the past 10 years perpetuating an unprecedented level of quantitative easing.

Can you provide data to back that specific claim around timing?

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#23

Post by tribune »

mabbo wrote: post #16

> The king of money-losers, of course, is Amazon, which went years without turning a profit. Instead, it plowed billions of dollars back into its business The key difference with Amazon is that Amazon could choose to be profitable at any time- just raise prices ever so slightly, reducing growth in customer demand, and the stop building out its enormous logistics empire and new businesses. Amazon could have had profit…

Plus Amazon is Amazon. They've essentially been saying to investors for years "sure, we could make more money for YOU, or give YOU dividends, but WE can do better with your money than YOU could." It's worked, of course, enabling them to grow into the gargantuan enterprise they are today. A smaller company without that proven track record wouldn't get such a license from investors for long.

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#24

Post by resource0x »

arcbyte wrote: post #12
andrewjrangel wrote: post #4

I am curious if this will end with a "bubble-burst" or a slow burn like twitter has experienced. Surely the money has to dry up sometime? It is too bad that none of these companies create any kind of net good for society like a startup that pays you over minimum wage to clean up a park or sort recycling.

> Surely the money has to dry up sometime? Yup, this fall. By the close of 2018 all the world's central banks will be in quantitative tightening after having spent the past 10 years perpetuating an unprecedented level of quantitative easing.

For how long? My conjecture is that they will re-start "easing" as soon as some index drops by 10%. And this new easing will exceed in scale all prior "easings" combined. Just a pure speculation :).

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#25

Post by Ensorceled »

mabbo wrote: post #16

> The king of money-losers, of course, is Amazon, which went years without turning a profit. Instead, it plowed billions of dollars back into its business The key difference with Amazon is that Amazon could choose to be profitable at any time- just raise prices ever so slightly, reducing growth in customer demand, and the stop building out its enormous logistics empire and new businesses. Amazon could have had profit…

Exactly, "years without turning a profit" is very different than "years burning through rounds of investor cash without hope of ever turning a profit".

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#26

Post by bonestamp2 »

empath75 wrote: post #8
andrewjrangel wrote: post #4

I am curious if this will end with a "bubble-burst" or a slow burn like twitter has experienced. Surely the money has to dry up sometime? It is too bad that none of these companies create any kind of net good for society like a startup that pays you over minimum wage to clean up a park or sort recycling.

There will eventually be a pets.com of the tech bubble. Something like Tesla or Uber or Blue Apron going belly up.

Tesla and Uber aren't going anywhere. There's way too much invested for them not to secure another tiny drop in the bucket to keep going. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea ("throwing good money after bad"), but that's the reality of what will happen, especially since it will probably be someone else's money as they dilute.

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#28

Post by pmoriarty »

xivzgrev wrote: post #2

Pretty much. Seated was another gravy train. You got a $15 Amazon or Uber gift card just for going to restaurant with a second person. There were no minimums. you just had to show up and had to order food. There was a 2-3 month period where my girlfriend and I were getting good meals for a net $15-$20 total. It was awesome, but I knew it wouldn't last. Then they put in restrictions - to qualify for the $15, you neede…

I got an even better deal: I cook my own meals, or eat at even cheaper restaurants. I'm also looking in to joining a community garden and growing some of my own food.

Amazon restaurant deals are not worth it for me, even with their discounts. But I understand that a certain segment of the population doesn't think much of such an expense, and that's who Amazon is targeting.

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#29

Post by bonestamp2 »

empath75 wrote: post #6

This dude stole my startup idea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16945451

I think he got the idea from bernie madoff. Probably not going to end well. But, maybe you'll break even with the proceeds from the TV movie and mini-series. Try to get that money first though.

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#30

Post by dragonwriter »

arcbyte wrote: post #12
andrewjrangel wrote: post #4

I am curious if this will end with a "bubble-burst" or a slow burn like twitter has experienced. Surely the money has to dry up sometime? It is too bad that none of these companies create any kind of net good for society like a startup that pays you over minimum wage to clean up a park or sort recycling.

> Surely the money has to dry up sometime? Yup, this fall. By the close of 2018 all the world's central banks will be in quantitative tightening after having spent the past 10 years perpetuating an unprecedented level of quantitative easing.

QEs been tapering off for a long time (US QE ended in 2014); there's very little reason to believe that it's global final (for now) end will do much to capital markets.
Post reply on HN