Poll: Which FAANG is the most likely to decline in the years ahead? • Hacker News Board

Re: Poll: Which FAANG is the most likely to decline in the years ahead?

#361

Post by twox2 » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:50 PM UTC

IMSAI8080 wrote: post #315

jrsj wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google to me seems to be the one with the worst execution at the moment. For all of their spend in various areas when is the last time they’ve had a win? Their core business is still strong but they seem to have lost their ability to innovate. That alone makes their decline seem inevitable to me even without considering external forces

I agree somewhat. About 80% or more of their business is still ads. It only takes some major advertising segment to have a downturn or otherwise decide that digital ads are useless and they'll see a hue dip in revenue. Although I'd see FaceBook as more precarious for similar reasons which is what I voted for.

This doesn't happen though. The money comes from brands, and brands are hungry to spend it. They don't really care about return on the dollar either.

Re: Poll: Which FAANG is the most likely to decline in the years ahead?

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Post by ghaff » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

Wojtkie wrote: post #341

lotsofpulp wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of this poll eludes me due to including Netflix and excluding Microsoft.

FAANG == Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google. It's an acronym specifically for those companies, which is why Microsoft was excluded.

Yes. But the point is that a term coined by a TV stock personality years ago has pretty much zero relevance for looking at what the arc is going to be for what are seen as leading tech companies (through a Silicon Valley lens).

Re: Poll: Which FAANG is the most likely to decline in the years ahead?

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Post by bombcar » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

throwawayboise wrote: post #211

cercatrova wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix still offers their DVD service.

Does anyone use it? I am thinking that people are so accustomed to immediate online gratification that waiting a day or three for a DVD in the mail is just not something a lot of people will do anymore. That means you are going to have to think ahead about what you want to watch, and plan a time to do it, rather than just flopping down on the couch and surfing to find whatever catches your eye. And many people don't…

RedBox provides all the new DVDs nearly instantly, and for anything older it's often pretty cheap to buy them used on Amazon.

Re: Poll: Which FAANG is the most likely to decline in the years ahead?

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Post by jcranmer » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

drstewart wrote: post #165

gkoberger wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google? I think you mean Alphabet ;) I think the problem with Netflix is there's a ceiling. Disney (which owns, like, all the IP out there... not to mention theme parks, sports and countless other things) is worth $288bn and Netflix is somehow worth $291bn!? Sure, Netflix has some decent movies out there... but do you really think their catalogue even begins to touch Disney? Either Disney is undervalued (probably tru…

If you're not into kids movies or superheroes, Disney's IP isn't really all that compelling.

It's worth remembering that Disney's single largest revenue source is... ESPN. Not its animated movies, other film IPs, other TV series, theme parks, or merchandising, but ESPN.

Re: Poll: Which FAANG is the most likely to decline in the years ahead?

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Post by mmcconnell1618 » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

addicted wrote: post #321

nr2x wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That said, until other streaming services entered the scene I didn't appreciate exactly how good Netflix's engineering is. The only service comparable is YouTube, but even then, Netflix has much higher quality. HBO Max has a great content library, but barely works.

Have you used HBO Max recently? Aside from the first month or so it’s been nearly flawless for me across a variety of platforms (Roku/Chromecast/iPhone). And the first month pains were very clearly because it was rushed out to time it with the release of certain IPs during the pandemic.

HBO Max on Apple TV is a terrible experience. The app doesn't appear to use the standard playback and navigation functions in most other Apple TV apps so you get unintuitive scrubbing behavior and inconsistent searching. Also, the app signs me out on a regular basis at random intervals. When this happens, you can still browse shows and click play but at that point you're interrupted with a "buy HBO Max" screen which is totally confusing. You have to manually navigate to the account, sign out, then sign back in and re-find the one episode you wanted to play.

Re: Poll: Which FAANG is the most likely to decline in the years ahead?

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Post by jonathankoren » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

romanhn wrote: post #279

jonathankoren wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but the main reason was that people have been predicting this was that young people don’t want to be on a social network with their parents. This social dynamic prediction has played out, and Facebook did the 100% predictable thing that all rich entrenched players do — they bought the smaller competitors, most famously Instagram. I fully expect them to continue to be able to monetize their user base, an…

As an ex-employee, Facebook is many things, but ossified it is not. The internal impact/metric-oriented culture means that new bets are encouraged and rewarded, whereas product teams that are keeping it safe will eventually get disbanded.

I’m also an ex-employee.

FB’s predilection to reorg every six months, isn’t a sign of strength. It’s actually a sign of dysfunction. They’ve just been able to power through by being extraordinarily lucky in the social networking space. It’s tire spinning.

The company hasn’t released a noteworthy product in at least a decade.

It’s an ossified megacorp.

Re: Poll: Which FAANG is the most likely to decline in the years ahead?

#367

Post by gnicholas » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:52 PM UTC

This is the first time I've participated in a poll, and I wish I could vote before seeing the results. Not that dang and friends aren't busy enough — just mentioning for the future.

Re: Poll: Which FAANG is the most likely to decline in the years ahead?

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Post by captainmuon » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:52 PM UTC

raydev wrote: post #233

I'm shocked that FB has so many votes here. FB may be getting slaughtered by the media, hated by both the left and the right, but the truth is no one is actually leaving FB. It's still the #1 place to find restaurants, buy/sell used items, neighborhood groups, etc etc etc. And if FB Proper were to ever fall behind, IG still has a lot of stamina left. I don't think it will happen any time soon, but I would like to see…

Facebook is for old people now. I organized an event for new students at the university and we had a discussion in the team whether we should advertize on FB or whether it would even be a hindrance because FB is not cool. We then agreed to post it there after all because people expect "serious" information such as dates of university events on Facebook.

I don't post regularly on Facebook, because my old FB friends are not very active. I'm in the age (late 30s) where you don't meet so many new people, and if you do it is no longer appropriate to add them on FB. So it is effectively dead for me. I communicate with one person via FB messenger and post uni events there. On Whatsapp, I communicate with my family and some coworkers. Everyone else is on Signal, Telegram, Instagram, maybe Twitter. TikTok is terrifying.

Re: Poll: Which FAANG is the most likely to decline in the years ahead?

#369

Post by devmunchies » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:52 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #353

lotsofpulp wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of this poll eludes me due to including Netflix and excluding Microsoft.

FAANG was originally about hot stocks. Jim Cramer coined it. And then, in tech circles, it became mostly about compensation--which had some correlation but imperfectly. Today, especially with Netflix being less unique technically (they did a lot of early out-of-the-box stuff like going all in on AWS and microservices), they're pretty much an outlier from the other companies although as far as I know they still pay ve…

> As they become more of a studio they'll become even more of an outlier

also, as they invest in developing proprietary production software they could get an advantage over other studios.

Re: Poll: Which FAANG is the most likely to decline in the years ahead?

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Post by jrockway » Mon, Jan 03, 2022, 9:52 PM UTC

I don't see any of these companies flat-out failing ever, but it does seem like they've gone the way of IBM. In the Fortune 500 but not quite as innovative as they were at their peak.

I feel like every generation has had their list of companies to be "lifers" at. There was Bell Labs, HP, IBM in a past generation. Then there was Google and Apple in a newer generation. Then there was Netflix, Facebook, AWS, etc. Right now, there are none! Who will start the next one, and avoid it becoming one from my list?