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Hertz, the original meme stock, is turning out to be worthless

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Re: Hertz, the original meme stock, is turning out to be worthless

#111

Post by fogof »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #39
Mc_Big_G wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hit me up when BTC goes bankrupt.

BTC’s version of bankrupt is when transaction fees aren’t worth enough to incentivize mining.

What do you mean by "not enough to incentivize mining"? Mining works on a system where the fewer miners there are the larger a portion of the total transaction fee share each miner gets. Even if the there were no exchanges or people sending transactions, I'm sure there would be at least a few nerds who would mine on their desktop computers for shits and giggles.

A better criterion would be "when transaction fees aren't worth enough to incentivize enough mining to keep the network secure". But even that isn't a very clear concept because you can always just wait longer for more blocks to confirm.

Re: Hertz, the original meme stock, is turning out to be worthless

#112

Post by camjohnson26 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #108
camjohnson26 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“This time it’s different” Nothing has changed except central bank policy encouraging rampant speculation. The bull market won’t last forever and every generation thinks the fundamentals don’t matter anymore, until suddenly they do. To be fair it is extremely hard to build wealth incrementally these days because of central bank policy, but it’s way better than yoloing life savings.

Is it possible the bull market reflects the realities of big businesses, and tech businesses especially, reaping the rewards of automation and scalability and near zero marginal costs?

Anything is possible. That's probably true for Apple and Amazon but those are the exception. That's definitely not true for Uber, who lost 8.5 Billion (!) from operations in 2019: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001543151/f272e03... Not true for WeWork either: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1533523/000119312519...

Maybe those are exceptions too but seems like the most hyped companies have not brought marginal costs near zero.

Re: Hertz, the original meme stock, is turning out to be worthless

#113

Post by candybar »

Judgmentality wrote: post #34
waprin wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competing with Twitch is not realistic and I’m surprised you think it’s bad. Facebook and Microsoft have both spent huge sums of money trying to and failed. And both those companies have deep engineering talent which GameStop does not and it will not be trivial to compete with those companies for engineers. Plus livestream is just really expensive in terms of compute and network costs. Finally and most importantly, T…

Everybody I know that uses twitch hates it. Like seriously, it's really bad. The conversations streamers have on discord are very different from what they'll say while streaming. They use it because there is no alternative. I am well aware that others have tried to compete and failed. But there is a market and nobody likes the only player. Eventually somebody is going to figure it out. And I am extremely confident it…

What in particular do they hate about twitch and what type of streamers are they? (top, emerging, casual, etc).

I too hear a lot of complaints about Twitch too but I feel that most of them have nothing to do with the product, but the zero-sum and competitive nature of gaming streaming. It's just difficult to succeed as a gaming streamer (or content creator more generally) and the vast majority of people who try will never make any meaningful amounts of money, so frustrations tend to be attributed to the arbitrary quirks of the platform, even though that's just the nature of any content business.

Re: Hertz, the original meme stock, is turning out to be worthless

#114

Post by lotsofpulp »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #112
lotsofpulp wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible the bull market reflects the realities of big businesses, and tech businesses especially, reaping the rewards of automation and scalability and near zero marginal costs?

Anything is possible. That's probably true for Apple and Amazon but those are the exception. That's definitely not true for Uber, who lost 8.5 Billion (!) from operations in 2019: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001543151/f272e03... Not true for WeWork either: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1533523/000119312519... Maybe those are exceptions too but seems like the most hyped companies have not brou…

What does "most hyped" mean? Why does WeWork matter at all in this discussion? They got destroyed for having weak prospects when they tried to come near the public markets.

I'm looking at this list of the S&P 500 companies, and they mostly have very solid earnings and fundamentals:

https://fknol.com/list/market-cap-sp-500-index-companies.php

I went through the top 100 companies, and the only one that is a "bet" is Tesla, except they have many, many cars on the road and have been delivering product that people want to buy.

If anything, I'm even more bullish for all these huge companies, as absent any government action (which I doubt), who is going to take them on? They will continue to go vertical and eat each other's business, maybe. But that doesn't really affect you if you're holding the whole index fund ETF.

Re: Hertz, the original meme stock, is turning out to be worthless

#115

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

Judgmentality wrote: post #19
tacheiordache wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed nothing lasts forever but TSLA at least has something to show while GME's business is passé. TSLA is overpriced but at the moment it crashed and will jump back to new heights. Why not take advantage of the notoriety and make a gain yourself?

I think it's obvious that I am holding a substantial amount of GME right now, and I think I should disclose that. Ryan Cohen, the guy who founded Chewy, is on the board for GME and leading an initiative to transform Gamestop into an e-commerce store. In other words he wants to compete directly with Steam, and while many don't realize it yet, Amazon. And this is one of the only people in history who has successfully b…

Twitch in essence is a giant ad for Prime. That's it. It's doing exactly what they want. It's a terrible business to try and make profitable as its own silo, which is why mixer et all have failed.

The only thing happening with GME is some opportunistic behavior around their sudden unexpected ability to raise speculative capital. Jeff Bezos himself could take over GME and there is zero chance it's going to become some sort of online ecommerce competitor to steam. They have absolutely no comparative advantage for that. All that's happening is GME management finding every way they can to redirect this influx of cash into their bonuses.

Re: Hertz, the original meme stock, is turning out to be worthless

#116

Post by Judgmentality »

candybar wrote: post #113
Judgmentality wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody I know that uses twitch hates it. Like seriously, it's really bad. The conversations streamers have on discord are very different from what they'll say while streaming. They use it because there is no alternative. I am well aware that others have tried to compete and failed. But there is a market and nobody likes the only player. Eventually somebody is going to figure it out. And I am extremely confident it…

What in particular do they hate about twitch and what type of streamers are they? (top, emerging, casual, etc). I too hear a lot of complaints about Twitch too but I feel that most of them have nothing to do with the product, but the zero-sum and competitive nature of gaming streaming. It's just difficult to succeed as a gaming streamer (or content creator more generally) and the vast majority of people who try will…

> What in particular do they hate about twitch and what type of streamers are they? (top, emerging, casual, etc).

Everything and everyone. Seriously, even the people making literally millions on twitch hate the DMCA takedowns, the completely capricious bans, the ridiculous barrage of forced ads which twitch has straight up lied about, the fact that Amazon streamed anti-union ads on twitch and then pretended it was an accident, the fact that titty streamers get special priveleges...and that's what I thought of in just 30 seconds off the top of my head.

twitch is fucking awful because it's owned by Amazon. It was great before the acquisition and shortly thereafter.

I never said it was easy. I'm saying twitch fucking sucks and when somebody makes something that doesn't suck it will instantly be an 11 digit market cap company. Right now the most likely contender is Gamestop, even if I'd only put that at about a 1% chance of happening.

Re: Hertz, the original meme stock, is turning out to be worthless

#117

Post by ISL »

brandmeyer wrote: post #107
ISL wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero shareholder value was the overwhelmingly likely outcome, but not completely certain. (If Hertz magically recovered from bankruptcy, however unlikely, the payoff might have been >1000%). The prospectus clearly stated that there was negligible likelihood of return. On the flip side, from the creditor's perspective: "We loaned you a bunch of money, you can't pay it back, and there are some people who would like to…

No. No! I reject this rationale. Just because its in the domain of finance and business doesn't make it ethical. For example, you can't just disclose your way into arbitrary medical experiments on people. Regardless of how you rationalize the principles, it will end up exploiting the most vulnerable citizens. While I readily admit that the law does not forbid all forms of unethical behavior, I do believe that it shou…

I understand the sentiment and might have had difficulty approving the sale if I were on the Hertz board of directors, however, there is a chance, however slim, that the dumb money knows something the smart money doesn't.

This is much more-readily seen post-GameStop. The AMC theater chain, mid-hoopla, managed to discharge much of its debt. The gamblers at home literally saved a major US business from dire financial straits. Some of them got paid for it, too. The company is in an undeniably better position today, as are any of the retail investors who bought and held. (The share price is up 10% today, too. The world is a complicated place.)

On the scale of exploitative acts, enabling informed gamblers to play chicken with the Bankruptcy Bus, while it may be exploitative at some level, may not be as egregious as other exploitation (Casinos? State lotteries?) that we tolerate every day.

Re: Hertz, the original meme stock, is turning out to be worthless

#118

Post by candybar »

Judgmentality wrote: post #116
candybar wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What in particular do they hate about twitch and what type of streamers are they? (top, emerging, casual, etc). I too hear a lot of complaints about Twitch too but I feel that most of them have nothing to do with the product, but the zero-sum and competitive nature of gaming streaming. It's just difficult to succeed as a gaming streamer (or content creator more generally) and the vast majority of people who try will…

> What in particular do they hate about twitch and what type of streamers are they? (top, emerging, casual, etc). Everything and everyone. Seriously, even the people making literally millions on twitch hate the DMCA takedowns, the completely capricious bans, the ridiculous barrage of forced ads which twitch has straight up lied about, the fact that Amazon streamed anti-union ads on twitch and then pretended it was an…

I don't see how any of these are deal-breakers for the viewers and if the viewers are there, the streamers aren't going anywhere. The network effect is real - it doesn't matter how good your streaming platform is if no one is using it.

Re: Hertz, the original meme stock, is turning out to be worthless

#119

Post by Judgmentality »

candybar wrote: post #118
Judgmentality wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What in particular do they hate about twitch and what type of streamers are they? (top, emerging, casual, etc). Everything and everyone. Seriously, even the people making literally millions on twitch hate the DMCA takedowns, the completely capricious bans, the ridiculous barrage of forced ads which twitch has straight up lied about, the fact that Amazon streamed anti-union ads on twitch and then pretended it was an…

I don't see how any of these are deal-breakers for the viewers and if the viewers are there, the streamers aren't going anywhere. The network effect is real - it doesn't matter how good your streaming platform is if no one is using it.

People are leaving twitch because it's so bad. Unfortunately I can't share that data with you, so I don't expect you to believe me.

Anyway, let's agree to disagree because we're not finding common ground here.

Re: Hertz, the original meme stock, is turning out to be worthless

#120

Post by candybar »

Judgmentality wrote: post #119
candybar wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how any of these are deal-breakers for the viewers and if the viewers are there, the streamers aren't going anywhere. The network effect is real - it doesn't matter how good your streaming platform is if no one is using it.

People are leaving twitch because it's so bad. Unfortunately I can't share that data with you, so I don't expect you to believe me. Anyway, let's agree to disagree because we're not finding common ground here.

Where are they going?
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