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

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 660 posts

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

#551

Post by dhosek »

HWR_14 wrote: post #390
dhosek wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking as I was leaving the movie theater over the weekend and saw a poster for some movie billed as an Amazon Studios production that Google and Facebook are the only ones in the FAANG who aren't producing TV/movies. It will be very interesting to see how that progresses over the next decade. I want to believe that the data-driven approach that Netflix and Amazon have taken with their productions won't be th…

Google and Facebook are very much in the video space, they are just trying to crowdsource it. And YouTube has a lot of ad supported movies and shows they are starting to roll out. Meanwhile Meta is very much trying to develop interactive VR content.

Thinking about this a bit more (and triggered by your comment), it occurs to me that the big difference between Google and Facebook vs Apple/Amazon/Netflix is that the former derive their income primarily from advertising. Netflix has established an expectation that online video is largely a premium thing that you pay for and don't have to watch ads during and while there are some exceptions to this in the major streaming services (Amazon's imdb.tv has free-with-ads programming, Hulu shows ads to most subscribers, and I'm pretty sure a lot of the lower-tier players do ads, but the big names in the space are all ad free with subscriptions and I don't know that Google/Facebook really have it in their DNA to do anything like that.

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

#552

Post by crakhamster01 »

I guess I should expect to see FB at #1 given this is HN, but even with the negative bias, it’s surprising to see people discount the success of Oculus so easily.

Quest was one of the best selling holiday gifts this year, and the companion app even hit #1 in the iOS App Store (over IG, TikTok, etc.)[1]. FB the app may be slowing growth, but AR/VR seems poised to be the next major computing platform - and mainstream adoption shares this sentiment. It’s fine to wish for the company’s demise, but arguing that they’re ready to fail seems foolish.

[1] https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/metaverse...

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

#553

Post by kdmccormick »

nr2x wrote: post #253
kdmccormick wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1, it's ridiculous and misleading that Netflix is still being included in this list after all this time. Netflix is a TV company. Their tech is a commodity. An important commodity, for sure, but it's not what makes them valuable. Their critical offering is their reach and programming. FAAMG (or MAAAM now, I guess?) is a sane grouping of giant companies because their critical offerings and expertise areas are their s…

"Google would be totally capable of reimplementing Netflix's streaming services" Perhaps some sort of "Tube" that "You" could use to watch content, maybe with a subscription option?

Hah, exactly.

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

#554

Post by drusepth »

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…

>And many people don't even have DVD players anymore. I don't.

The only reason I do is because gaming consoles double as DVD players now. I assume that's a leading force in why others might have DVD players, too.

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

#555

Post by [deleted] »

thehappypm wrote: post #88
artemonster wrote: post #15

I have loads of friends who started to cancel their netflix subs and went back to piracy because they grew tired of searching for a way to watch something legally. Now its disney, hbo, prime, whatever. Screw all of this.

A show I had one episode left of went off Netflix on 1/1. I tried to find it EVERYWHERE, I even downloaded iTunes on my PC. “Not available in your region” left right and center. I luckily found a torrent and it was legitimately the only way I could find the content beyond buying DVDs on eBay.

[deleted]

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

#556

Post by drusepth »

ce4 wrote: post #99
thehappypm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A show I had one episode left of went off Netflix on 1/1. I tried to find it EVERYWHERE, I even downloaded iTunes on my PC. “Not available in your region” left right and center. I luckily found a torrent and it was legitimately the only way I could find the content beyond buying DVDs on eBay.

Perfectly fits this 10 years old comic classic from Matthew Inman: https://www.theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

I was living in Ireland for a little while and wanted to watch Game of Thrones. At the time, piracy was literally the only possible way to watch it; there was no legal avenue whatsoever (including purchasing cable from HBO, etc) that included it.

I still haven't seen Game of Thrones.

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

#557

Post by greedo »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #407
the_af wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Discs have great resolution, often have bonus features, and almost always have closed captioning, which I appreciate more and more as I age. Don't they get scratched these days? I remember the DVD days of Blockbuster, and also thinking "DVD as a technology is just not ready for rental" every time I got a disc that was scratched and/or had sticky stuff glued to it.

DVD has an issue with scratches, but bluray and later discs have a scratch resistant coating that works extremely well.

Netflix must remove it then, because 50% of the BR discs I rented before cancelling that part of my NF subscription were unplayable.

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

#558

Post by nebula8804 »

ghaff wrote: post #497
FractalHQ wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of my favorite works in the past few years have been Netflix originals. You might want to consider giving them another chance! They’ve got some of the film industries most talented minds working on them.

Examples? I haven't mostly seen them although I do subscribe. I could name at least two shows on Apple TV+ (which is rarely discussed) that I consider better than anything on Netflix of late. (For All Mankind and The Morning Show)

Queen's Gambit

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

#559

Post by nr2x »

mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #365
addicted wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To be fair, Apple TV is a pretty terrible experience, especially regarding them trying to force users to give Tim Apple a cut of streaming subscriptions.

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

#560

Post by ch4s3 »

skybrian wrote: post #549
ch4s3 wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Amazon is about to enter a decade of unionization all over the world. World wide is probably too strong a claim, but I think here's something to this. However, I think this would work in Amazon's favor. It would make warehousing quite a bit more expensive and would be a significant barrier to competitors. AWS provides them with deep pockets, and the have a huge advantage in logistics so I think they could eat the…

I agree, especially if by "huge advantage in logistics" you include things like warehouse automation. If everyone is paying high wages then it seems like whoever automates the most will do well? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-21/inside-am...

They're quite good at logistics in general based on my limited exposure to their operation through work.
Post reply on HN