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

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611–620 of 660 posts

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

#611
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see very little evidence that Netflix' data science has been a unique differentiator. For what they've developed, they have some hits and quite a few duds. Their licensed catalog is not exceptional--and even less exceptional when it comes to film. They'll likely mostly turn into another studio with a streaming platform.

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

An observation that I've made is that people disregard Microsoft as if they've crossed over from some alternate universe where Windows isn't the predominant operating system on both desktops and servers, and Azure isn't the second biggest public cloud platform.

I regularly see comments like: "The public clouds providers like Amazon, Google, and I suppose even Oracle".

It's kind of hilarious to see people just skip over the second biggest company in the world like it doesn't even exist in their minds.

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

#612
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For starters just looking at growth in the past year is very favorable for them, but look at the past 5 and they’re the weakest aside from Facebook and by a relatively small margin. Almost all of their growth has been post-COVID, so it’s hard to say whether that trend will hold. Personally I expect them to return to the slower growth they had pre-pandemic as to me it doesn’t seem like anything core to their business…

I think you underestimate stadia. I don 't use it myself, but know a lot of people playing on it and highly recommending the experience.

Isn’t that already discontinued?

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

#613
post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is simply not true

Well, when I left in 2010 it was extremely true. Not even remotely in the ballpark. According to Levels.fyi they pay about 50% more now, but still less than any FAANG.

They will gladly match FAANG comp for senior hires, L63+. The low salaries on levels.fyi is skewed by junior positions.

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

#614
post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right of course that given the same resolution, a Blu-ray will have a higher bitrate but to elaborate on what I was saying: - The perceived streaming quality may match Blu-ray because the bitrate is high enough that humans can't tell the difference anymore. This is especially likely to be the case is the content isn't challenging. - The perceived quality may be higher than Blu-Ray because 4K is available for s…

I get your point, just to play devil's advocate though: up until a few years ago, there was an often repeated argument that "the human eye can't see more than 30fps" (it was used to justify the fact that many console games were capped at 30fps back then)... Today, many gamers use a 144hz monitor and would never go back to a lower refresh rate. I wonder if the same story will happen with regards to lossy video compres…

I don't think the claim that the human eye can't see more than 30fps was ever supported by evidence, it was just "common knowledge" like other falsehoods such as certain parts of the tongue only detecting certain tastes. I think it was actually based on the minimum frame rate necessary for a human to perceive motion instead of a slide show. Scientifically, a quick Google indicates that humans can see up to around 90Hz for more normal cases and 500Hz for a specific edge-case [0].

When it comes to video compression though, industry practice is largely based on the result of user testing. There are well-controlled tests where a bunch of people are put in a specific test environment and shown videos encoded using different parameters and there are larger scale A/B tests where a streaming platform will tweak parameters and see how they affect metrics like time spent consuming content. So I'm confident that the compression of today matches the users and hardware of today.

However hardware can change and I expect that's what will drive increases in video quality. For example the encodes of today are biases to some extent by the fact that people watch videos on tiny screens like phones or tablets, which are likely a bottleneck for quality perception. If people start consuming more content on say VR headsets, streaming platforms may see the need to increase quality. 8K is also a possible driver (especially for very large displays).

Connectivity is also a big deal. Lossless music is possible because the bitrate is relatively low but streaming 4K blu-ray is out of the question for many people at the moment. In the future though it's definitely a possibility.

[0]: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep07861

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

#615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but are they better than pirating? Absolutely not. I am absolutely confident of that statement. One box of drives, a small machine to act as a Plex server, and VPN is all you need. Pre-made, high quality tools exist to automate everything. It's almost completely friction-less. Pirating is easier, better, and faster now than it has ever been. The push to splinter streaming services is only speeding up its adoption, a…

I'm not sure who downvoted you, but I cannot agree more. For giggles, I just went ahead and priced this out: One-time costs: * Plex Pass: $80 * NZB indexer access: $10 (for 2 or 3) Ongoing monthly costs: * File server (three-year deprecation): $55 * IPTV: $15 * Unlimited Usenet account: $3 This took an afternoon of setup, but has just worked since. Heck, the other day I discovered a new season of a show had apparentl…

Where do you get Usenet for that cheap?

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

#617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple is one Supreme Court ruling away from ending their App Store monopoly However, if the app store were to open up, it could create a more vibrant ecosystem underneath and even create even more network effects within ios. Less direct money for apple but more vibrant developer economy.

"Monopoly" is an interesting term in this situation. Obviously they are the sole provider of the iOS platform access, but iOS itself is not the largest smartphone platform.

Well, for someone owning an apple product, the App Store is a monopoly, without an easy way to change that. Especially where nowadays owning a phone is almost a must and you only have 2 choices.

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

#618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whaaaa? What does “pro paedophile tendencies” even mean? Can you give concrete examples of this? I’ve never heard this accusation before…

There's really odd undertones in a lot of Netflix shows Big Mouth (a cartoon) is about child sex Emily in Paris, character lead has sex with a 17yo on screen. There are more, I just can't bring them to mind at the moment. Perhaps I should begin to document them. Hmm... Black Mirror (the Netflix episodes) had child sex in, End of The Fucking World had child sex in it; although both with negative consequences so poor e…

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

#619

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.

Yeah, I have completely reverted to piracy, due to those reasons.

Also, many of these platforms made the strange decision to not accept subscriptions from locations outside the US in the beginning. I tried to subscribe to Disney+ and HBO max when they started, but was denied due to location.

Probably works now, but I don't care. They had their one chance.

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

#620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think NBC would actually love it if you would please pay every month to watch the office over and over.

Then why did they remove it from Netflix?

Because they started their own streaming service, NBC Peacock.
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