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Vice Ventures is investing in taboo industries that other funds won’t touch

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Re: Vice Ventures is investing in taboo industries that other funds won’t touch

#71

Post by Vector919 »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #51
klyrs wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that weapons producers don't have a shortage of investment opportunities. Their customers include militaries and police departments. And if it's "just politics," the finance industry skews right and the NRA is one of the most powerful lobbies in the US. If ivestors are distancing themselves from the gun industry, I'd assume that it's good ol' fiscal conservatism: mass shootings are on the rise and they don'…

Industries dominated by a small number of very large players are typically what you'd call 'ripe for disruption'. Banking has never had a shortage of funding either, but banking and financial startups have only recently started to influence the industry. I didn't hear about anybody turning down Stripe because "finance sector is overfunded".

I think that's only true when the start up costs are relatively low, right? The airline industry also has a small number of very large players, but I don't know if we should also consider it ripe for disruption

Re: Vice Ventures is investing in taboo industries that other funds won’t touch

#72

Post by namewasmypw »

virmundi wrote: post #50
namewasmypw wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The left tends to oppose government restrictions, as opposed to the center and center-left (liberals).

[flagged]

Anarchists are not asking for any of those things. Liberals aren't leftists.

Re: Vice Ventures is investing in taboo industries that other funds won’t touch

#73

Post by namewasmypw »

LanceH wrote: post #40
namewasmypw wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell if you think what you're saying is correct (and you're wrong) or if you think what you're saying is wrong (and you're still wrong.)

Help me out here, what am I wrong about?

> Sloth is considered a vice and playing video games fits right in there in the judgement of enough that it gets mainstream play.

Citations needed. Your posts in this tree are full of weasel words and opinions passed off as common sense.

Re: Vice Ventures is investing in taboo industries that other funds won’t touch

#74

Post by yabadabadoes »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #51
klyrs wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that weapons producers don't have a shortage of investment opportunities. Their customers include militaries and police departments. And if it's "just politics," the finance industry skews right and the NRA is one of the most powerful lobbies in the US. If ivestors are distancing themselves from the gun industry, I'd assume that it's good ol' fiscal conservatism: mass shootings are on the rise and they don'…

Industries dominated by a small number of very large players are typically what you'd call 'ripe for disruption'. Banking has never had a shortage of funding either, but banking and financial startups have only recently started to influence the industry. I didn't hear about anybody turning down Stripe because "finance sector is overfunded".

Stripe went into the payment gateway business, competing with perhaps 100 pretty small players for the side the big players don't want.

Make a consumer product banks can copy and try to prove its viable and I think you'll get that feedback.

Re: Vice Ventures is investing in taboo industries that other funds won’t touch

#75

Post by AmericanChopper »

Vector919 wrote: post #71
AmericanChopper wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Industries dominated by a small number of very large players are typically what you'd call 'ripe for disruption'. Banking has never had a shortage of funding either, but banking and financial startups have only recently started to influence the industry. I didn't hear about anybody turning down Stripe because "finance sector is overfunded".

I think that's only true when the start up costs are relatively low, right? The airline industry also has a small number of very large players, but I don't know if we should also consider it ripe for disruption

The airline industry has already been massively disrupted by innovative startups and new investment. Startups have drastically changed the business of selling flights and travel services to consumers, the rise of budget airlines has completely changed the competitive landscape of that industry, and there’s countless ways that outside innovations have found their way into the supply chains of the big players.

Re: Vice Ventures is investing in taboo industries that other funds won’t touch

#76

Post by ARandomerDude »

joe_the_user wrote: post #42
LyndsySimon wrote: post #4

I’ve mentioned this before, but the firearms industry has a similar issue, caused by the same clauses. Local gun stores often pay very high fees for credit card processing relative to other retail stores - and unlike gambling and pornography, this doesn’t seem to be supported by a higher chargeback rate as best I can tell. They’ve just been “lumped in” because of the regulated nature of some of their products. I say…

I think most of the firearms industry serves police and military and I don't think that part has trouble getting finance of whatever sort it might need. Retail gun sales are a somewhat exceptional little piece of the overall arms industry. Many nations that control access to arms for their citizens still maintain and support an arms industry, including small firearms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry

The "firearms industry" is a subset of the "arms industry." "Firearms" are rifles, pistols, and shotguns. "Arms" include those, plus tanks, fighter jets, artillery, nuclear weapons, etc.

Re: Vice Ventures is investing in taboo industries that other funds won’t touch

#78

Post by njarboe »

ummwhat wrote: post #70
nokcha wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If it's sex or drugs or any sort of addiction, the user is victim. With weapons, other people are the victim. At least in the US, a majority of deaths by firearm are suicides. And as for potentially addictive drugs (e.g., alcohol), the user can cause great harm to other people, as in drunk driving.

No. A plurality of the gun deaths are suicide (%33). Accidents and homicide add up to more.

I don't think that is correct. This article[1] cites the CDC as stating that gun deaths in 2017 were 60% suicides, 37% murder and 3% other.

[1]https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/16/what-the-da...

Re: Vice Ventures is investing in taboo industries that other funds won’t touch

#79

Post by AmericanChopper »

yabadabadoes wrote: post #74
AmericanChopper wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Industries dominated by a small number of very large players are typically what you'd call 'ripe for disruption'. Banking has never had a shortage of funding either, but banking and financial startups have only recently started to influence the industry. I didn't hear about anybody turning down Stripe because "finance sector is overfunded".

Stripe went into the payment gateway business, competing with perhaps 100 pretty small players for the side the big players don't want. Make a consumer product banks can copy and try to prove its viable and I think you'll get that feedback.

Stripe, N26, SBV, Square, Brex, Monza... and many others all compete directly with banks.

That’s also very tangential to the fact that while some areas of banking, finance or weapons dealing may be dominated by large institutions, there’s plenty of other areas that are not. Stripe is a perfect example in how they started out by capturing a retail market that was outside the core business of the large players. Nobody would look at their value prop and say “finance is overfunded”, because that ignores what area they were actually trying to compete in.

If you wanted to make a startup that looked to innovate retail weapons trade, then no investor is going to tell you “you’ll never compete with Raytheon”, because no matter how big they are, they don’t compete in retail weapons trade. What they would more likely tell you is something like “we don’t invest in that vice industry”.

Re: Vice Ventures is investing in taboo industries that other funds won’t touch

#80

Post by nyolfen »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #76
joe_the_user wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most of the firearms industry serves police and military and I don't think that part has trouble getting finance of whatever sort it might need. Retail gun sales are a somewhat exceptional little piece of the overall arms industry. Many nations that control access to arms for their citizens still maintain and support an arms industry, including small firearms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry

The "firearms industry" is a subset of the "arms industry." "Firearms" are rifles, pistols, and shotguns. "Arms" include those, plus tanks, fighter jets, artillery, nuclear weapons, etc.

there is crossover but you might as well lump together stealth bombers and SUVs. the vast, vast majority of firearms produced by US companies are for civilians.
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