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

591–600 of 660 posts

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

#591

Post by rootsudo »

Netflix, each media holder is looking to monetize and create their own streaming platform. Netflix was first, but does not hold rights to Disney, NBC, etc -

For primary markets, USA and such it will have more and more competition but in other parts of the world they'll be able to still license content until more mature infrastructure develops - netflix is #2 to CDN/cohosting in the world, right behind facebook.

Disney plus though, really getting up there with creative content and it's massive legacy of IP.

Google - Adtech, no problems there unfortunately, just more crappy internet. Apple - iPhones/Macbook and it's ecosystem is alive and well though revenue stream of app store could change in the future. Amazon - Infrastructure as a service, way better than Google, no problem here. Storefront is a minor part of it's business.

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

#592

Post by RexM »

Mayzie wrote: post #563
rurp wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to this, given the resources spent on it their UX is pretty bad and I don't think their data scientists are giving them much if any edge over the competition at this point. Features such as only using company generated ratings, aggressively cancelling shows, and the lack of ability to browse/sort/filter the catalog, in favor of Netflix pushing the recommendations they choose on users, is probably great for qua…

> aggressively cancelling shows Ha, that is so true. Netflix is infamous for this. It’s to the extent that I cannot start watching a Netflix production unless I know it’s finished or if it’s a big hit from day one (so I know it won’t be cancelled, like The Witcher). It’s odd, because Netflix’s reputation for prematurely cancelling content without resolving their endings has extended to beyond just youth-dominated soc…

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, too.

People don’t want to watch shows in case it gets cancelled early. Then Netflix cancels the show early because there wasn’t enough interest.

If they didn’t have the reputation people would watch the shows and if it’s good tell their friends. At this point it seems like everyone just stays away though.

They could always just keep making new seasons to add to their catalog and eventually people might watch it, but it seems risky to spend the money.

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

#593

Post by ModernMech »

b9a2cab5 wrote: post #575
ModernMech wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Okay, so if Jason Momoa was the one who auditioned best for T'Challah you would say that's a good casting? I would say Black Panther is a story about blackness. The blackness of the main character is kind of the point of the whole thing, it’s even in the title. This is not true for the Nilfgaardians. There is no race component here to that story, so why does race need to be explained? Why don’t any other characters…

> Why don’t any other characters have to explain what makes them unique from the rest They do. Geralt has a huge back story that explains why he's ripped and has a bunch of scars and why every peasant is afraid of him. Yennefer has a huge back story that explains why she's beautiful. If they casted someone ugly as Yennefer then that backstory wouldn't exactly apply anymore would it? > I would say Black Panther is a s…

> Geralt has a huge back story that explains why he's ripped and has a bunch of scars and why every peasant is afraid of him.

And is that strength relevant to the story, or is it apropos of nothing? Yennefer's beauty has no context in the story? Of course it does - these qualities bring these characters power that shapes the events as they unfold. Fringilla does not derive her power from her blackness because it's not relevant to her character's story. It doesn't need to be explained because it doesn't advance the story.

The very simple explanation is: she's fantastic and terrifying in the role, and that's why she has the part. The exact pigmentation of the actress' skin doesn't need to be explained in the story, no matter the skin pigmentation of her co-stars.

> You think that's good casting?

I mean, maybe it's just my bad taste, but I see nothing wrong with any of your suggestions. But I haven't seen either of those programs so I can't really give a good answer. Is Garret Walker anti-Korean? Is that why it would be a bad decision?

> If there was a character that was taller than everyone in their kingdom I'd expect that to be explained too.

Why? Some people are just taller than others. The explanation is: that guy is taller. We don't know why, he just is. We all grew to this height, and he just kept growing until he got to that height. The same thing goes for skin tone. For all you know this is a sampling issue. We're talking about a fantasy race here. If you really want some sort of satisfactory explanation, go write some fanfiction.

> You are trying to impose your own social justice values on a high fantasy TV show.

No, I'm actually projecting the experience of my youth onto this situation right now. I'm not trying to impose my view on anything -- quite the opposite; I'm saying things are fine the way they are.

I'm actually going to bookmark this conversation as a discussion piece because there's a lot to unpack here, you've been very candid.

> I bet you're white, male, a millennial or Gen Z, you live in a big city, and you work in tech.

Right on 3, wrong on 2 - I'll let you guess which!

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

#594

Post by geoduck14 »

ghaff wrote: post #490
MarkLowenstein wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. For a firm with all these supposed high-performers trying to discover and cater to my viewing habits, they sure had a hard time figuring out that I never chose their "original content" that they were shoving in my face all the time. I dropped them in 2020.

There was this storyline that data was going to replace lunches with authors, pitch meetings, and a lot of other creative activities. It's mostly been BS. And recommendation engines barely work at all 10+ years in.

>There was this storyline that data was going to replace lunches with authors, pitch meetings, and a lot of other creative activities. It's mostly been BS.

Let this be a lesson. Data and fancy algorithms can NEVER replace a smart human who cares. Data and algorithms can enhance and expedite humans - but if your humans are stupid, you will just make stupid decisions faster

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

#595

Post by jonas21 »

RandomThrow321 wrote: post #222
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

You can't think of any times they've had a win? They saw the largest growth of any FAANG in the past year. What about cloud and devices (pixel, nest, stadia, Chromecast, etc.)? They made 22 billion just on "other" bets in 2020. With some of their big bets in custom SoCs, waymo, verily, and all of the research that comes out of it (especially in ML) are certainly interesting, I don't think any other companies are inno…

Not to mention YouTube, which has exploded over the last few years to have roughly the same revenue as Netflix [1]. They've basically grown a FAANG, and nobody seems to have noticed.

[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/with-skyrocketing-sales-yo...

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

#596

Post by sincerely »

bamboozled wrote: post #590
raydev wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mistake, I didn’t mean it’s the place to discover new restaurants, but it’s the best way to get the latest menu, latest hours, and speak directly with the owners through Messenger. Quite often the FB page is more up-to-date than the websites they own.

I still lean on Google maps for hours and busy times...as much as I hate Google.

Ever since the pandemic I found the hours listed on Google maps for restaurants/business to be often (understandably) incorrect or out of date, and now I usually double check on Instagram or Facebook if there's a page run by the restaurant.

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

#597

Post by discardable_dan »

bgro wrote: post #127
ecshafer wrote: post #25

Facebook is currently ahead, but I wonder how much of that is perception. There is a lot of media about how Facebook is evil, but that is mostly from a pretty small circle of media and political people, that Facebook is naturally in opposition to. Facebook also owns instagram and whatsapp as well. But everyone over 30 I know uses Facebook, heavily. Instagram is also used very heavily. Amazon has threats from other E-…

Amazon / Google I think will stay strong due to their infrastructure in cloud technology. Amazon has the physical delivery infrastructure as well, which doesn't have a great competitor yet. Apple is currently doing fine with their devices. I think the health industry will adopt some of their tech soon (like the apple watch) to get some of that sweet, sweet healthcare / insurance money That leaves the "worst" of the g…

I believe nobody talking about Netflix is worse than people talking negatively about Facebook. Facebook has far-reaching influence over non-US societies, and are generally capable of living off of just those societies. Netflix, on the other hand, is very quickly losing the content war to the likes of Disney and HBO, plus further losing its bread-and-butter catalog backfill to Hulu. Facebook is going to keep being the popular boogeyman, possibly declining over the next decade. Netflix may truly be gone in 10 years, though.

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

#598

Post by tdsamardzhiev »

Ordered by chance of decline (IMHO):

1. Netflix (~50% chance) - I feel it's only bundled with the rest of FAANG to make it sound better. In any case, HBO/Disney/Apple/whoever producing a cultural phenomenon like "Game of Thrones" would be enough for Netflix to lose the lead. Netflix wants to game viewers based on big data, but I feel like that will only lead to more and more generic stuff being produced.

2. Facebook (~25% chance) - It has pissed off multiple governments and other tech giants. Younger generations don't really care about it, and older people are starting to understand that it thrives on outrage.

3. Google (~10% chance) - Most of their services are slowly becoming worse, but I feel there's at least another decade before disruption time.

4. Apple (~1% chance) - Even if they need to allow additional app stores by law, I don't see that significantly impacting their bottom line. iPhone/iPad/Watch are the device to own in their categories, and the latest crop of Macbooks have been absolutely stellar. Additionally, they have by far the most devout userbase out of any big tech company. If anything can hurt Apple, that's the NIH syndrome, but it's more of a long-term concern.

5. Amazon (0% chance) - Yeah, not happening. Amazon is synonymous with online retail in a time when online retail is what keeps the world going. And AWS is only going to grow, even if it somehow manages to fall behind Azure. Labor unions will certainly show up, but so will automation.

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

#599

Post by skylanh »

TrackerFF wrote: post #418
irrational wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix only has about 200 million subscribers. That is astonishingly small (IMHO). Though, I'm not a subscriber, so it probably shouldn't surprise me, but it still does.

I don't know, that's about 2.5% of the worlds population. All paid subscribers. Haven't checked out their financials, but are they making money yet?

https://ir.netflix.net/financials/sec-filings/sec-filings-de...

Consolidated statement of net income for each year (page 22 of the PDF):

2020: ~$2.7b on 200m members

2019: ~$1.8b on 167m members

2018: ~$1.2b on 139m members

2017: ~$0.5b on 110m members

2016: ~$0.2b on 89m members

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

#600

Post by ksec »

b9a2cab5 wrote: post #230
jarjoura wrote: post #96

All of these companies are too big to fail at this point. They all have at least a decade of reserves to power through anything that gets thrown their way. However, I do predict that they will change in significant ways in the next decade. * Apple is one Supreme Court ruling away from ending their App Store monopoly that could disrupt the entire world, since it would also affect all other digital marketplaces. * Amaz…

Netflix is already on the way down. They infused all of their new shows with wokeness. Every new show feels like woke concepts are shoehorned in without regard for their impact on the story that's told. Look at the Witcher for an example. Or if you want to see this kind of shift happening over the course of a show, look at Madam Secretary. Season 1 didn't feature any of this crap and showed a strong woman main charac…

Well nearly all of Silicon Valley are woke. May be Facebook being the exception.
Post reply on HN