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

Mary Meeker’s 2019 internet trends report [pdf]

bondcap.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 119 posts

Re: Mary Meeker’s 2019 internet trends report [pdf]

#21

Post by kbenson »

mevile wrote: post #14
ketzo wrote: post #13

From page 29, average customer acquisition cost has risen by ~33% in just the last two years ... they make the point on the next slide that having customer acquisition costs exceed a customer's lifetime value can't really succeed for long. I think this, specifically, is what will spell the doom of Uber and Lyft, and potentially many of the food delivery companies -- they rely on insane growth curves to generate new i…

> will spell the doom of Uber and Lyft Car sharing isn't going anywhere. It's too convenient. The prices will rise, the number of drivers and passengers will fall and the companies will shrink, but they'll still be around. I have trouble seeing suddenly seeing a day when there's no car share service because they all finally went belly up.

I can totally see a situation where a new entrant comes in at a point where the system stabilizes, and can be quickly profitable, if only slightly, but survive, while Uber and Lyft are contending with extreme pressure of what is essentially soft debt. Do any of Uber or Lyft's investors want those companies to by in a super competitive market where the profits are thin? Maybe that pressure causes them to make wild swings that are much more risky. How rationally will investors approach their investment?

Re: Mary Meeker’s 2019 internet trends report [pdf]

#22

Post by bredren »

loganfrederick wrote: post #19
tedsanders wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, even in this scenario the company still exists, just with a different brand. They'll still have the same code, the same infrastructure, the same users. If Facebook buys Oculus, that doesn't mean Oculus stops existing. It just means Oculus is now owned by Facebook.

Correct, the main difference (in my mind, open to other arguments) is how financial resources are allocated. Right now, Uber and Lyft are burning a ton of money on customer acquisition with the goals of gaining enough scale to be sustainable, independent companies. Relating this back to the great-grandparent post, there's an alternative: Google and Apple could use their existing brand recognition and software reach t…

Would the only future for these products be a mix of human and autonomous fleets? And eventually, purely autonomous?

If so, does this presuppose Apple’s vision is to include mass transportation as (a major) part of its products?

Re: Mary Meeker’s 2019 internet trends report [pdf]

#25

Post by ketzo »

lil-scamp wrote: post #18
ketzo wrote: post #13

From page 29, average customer acquisition cost has risen by ~33% in just the last two years ... they make the point on the next slide that having customer acquisition costs exceed a customer's lifetime value can't really succeed for long. I think this, specifically, is what will spell the doom of Uber and Lyft, and potentially many of the food delivery companies -- they rely on insane growth curves to generate new i…

While margins in on-demand are usually pretty slim, companies can get pretty creative about opening up revenue streams: ad-serving, corp partnerships, enterprise pricing, licensing out tech). None of these are a silver bullet, but they open up new growth that isn't tied to the standard hockey stick growth curve people use to get funding.

That's actually an interesting point. Uber Eats and the various scooter companies are just the very beginning of these companies trying to branch out into new areas of revenue. Whether they can branch out into profitability... I guess we'll see!

Re: Mary Meeker’s 2019 internet trends report [pdf]

#26

Post by vram22 »

zemo wrote: post #8
gwern wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can link specific pages in a PDF too, like thus: https://www.bondcap.com/pdf/190611_Internet_Trends_2019.pdf#...

woah. Is that a universal thing or is it browser-specific? I've never seen that before. edit: ah. Yeah it doesn't work on my phone (Pixel ... 1). It downloads the entire PDF and then just dumps me on the first page.

The links are probably part of the PDF specification, but I guess will require support in every PDF reader in which you want to to use them.

Re: Mary Meeker’s 2019 internet trends report [pdf]

#27

Post by tptacek »

mevile wrote: post #14
ketzo wrote: post #13

From page 29, average customer acquisition cost has risen by ~33% in just the last two years ... they make the point on the next slide that having customer acquisition costs exceed a customer's lifetime value can't really succeed for long. I think this, specifically, is what will spell the doom of Uber and Lyft, and potentially many of the food delivery companies -- they rely on insane growth curves to generate new i…

> will spell the doom of Uber and Lyft Car sharing isn't going anywhere. It's too convenient. The prices will rise, the number of drivers and passengers will fall and the companies will shrink, but they'll still be around. I have trouble seeing suddenly seeing a day when there's no car share service because they all finally went belly up.

I don't think car sharing will go extinct either, but be careful with your analyses. Uber and Lyft are precariously balanced on a system of (substantial) low-income demand, high-income demand, and subsidy. If prices rise, low-income demand plummets, ending subsidies. High-income pricing could rise significantly higher than you might expect, at which point you no longer have "ride sharing" so much as you have private car services with app hailing instead of phone hailing, and, like NYC in the 1990s, so expensive that most people will only use it to get to the airport.

Re: Mary Meeker’s 2019 internet trends report [pdf]

#28

Post by theflyinghorse »

neogodless wrote: post #11
zemo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda like the slideshow, it lets me send someone a link to a specific slide.

Maybe it's just me, but I didn't understand the (slideshow) interface. I saw "click to begin" and I saw a down arrow, so I put the two together and clicked "down" to begin. Then I saw a list of archives, and if I continued down, it ended. I assumed I had to click 2019, so I did that and I was back where I began. It took me trying that twice before I realized I had to click... anything except the arrow.

Oh no, it's not just you. I nearly gave up until I saw your comment

Re: Mary Meeker’s 2019 internet trends report [pdf]

#29

Post by AnimalMuppet »

mevile wrote: post #14
ketzo wrote: post #13

From page 29, average customer acquisition cost has risen by ~33% in just the last two years ... they make the point on the next slide that having customer acquisition costs exceed a customer's lifetime value can't really succeed for long. I think this, specifically, is what will spell the doom of Uber and Lyft, and potentially many of the food delivery companies -- they rely on insane growth curves to generate new i…

> will spell the doom of Uber and Lyft Car sharing isn't going anywhere. It's too convenient. The prices will rise, the number of drivers and passengers will fall and the companies will shrink, but they'll still be around. I have trouble seeing suddenly seeing a day when there's no car share service because they all finally went belly up.

I could see Uber and Lyft being still around, with one or both of them having gone through a bankruptcy. Alternately, with one or both having their stock price crater.

Re: Mary Meeker’s 2019 internet trends report [pdf]

#30

Post by chaostheory »

The only thing that I had doubts on was the 'Video Watching Daily Minutes' portion Page 49. ISPs like Comcast game their cable numbers. How? They provide incentives to customers where it's actually cheaper to have a basic cable plan bundled with internet vs just internet. Guess what plan customers are going to pick regardless of whether or not they really watch cable TV? Assuming seniors aren't disproportionately consuming video vs everyone else, it's probably closer to 40 / 60 - television vs digital respectively. Unless Comcast and other operators with similar practices provide their DAU, television watching statistics will be inaccurate.
Post reply on HN