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Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

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Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#81
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoom is most definitely here to stay. I am confident that remote work culture will continue to be a part of normal working culture going forward. There's too many advantages for both labor and businesses to keep remote work alive.

Is Zoom here to stay or is video conferencing here to stay? Google Meets and MS Teams are pretty good and built into their respective Office suite products.

Low friction web rtc based tools like streamyard and jitsi meet will probably become more popular than “native” apps like zoom and teams which tend to get slower and just generally worse as they are updated especially with large corporates driving the feature bloat.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#82
post #54

Peloton has pretty expensive products and induces the same reaction folks had to iPhones before other companies released similarly priced flagships. Generally I think it's easy to hate on these products if you don't have one. I was pretty skeptical myself. "Was", because my partner picked up the Peloton Bike and subsequently the Peloton Tread. Like some other comments here, the almost cultish following is quite fasci…

>>Peloton has pretty expensive products and induces the same reaction folks had to iPhones before other companies released similarly priced flagships.

I think they both continue to generate the same reaction in many. They are both over priced products with users that are near cult like in their support of the company. If you are not part of that cult you view people in the cult as a little crazy

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#83

I think we’re starting to see a bit of “post pandemic” economic factors and that explains some of the shake up on Wall Street as of late. I always felt this about Peloton more than anything though, that it was not going to be able to sustain growth numbers as the pandemic when either of these came to pass: 1) ended officially 2) waned on to the point that it became "normalized" in how to handle day to day activities…

Zoom is most definitely here to stay. I am confident that remote work culture will continue to be a part of normal working culture going forward. There's too many advantages for both labor and businesses to keep remote work alive.

Whats interesting to me is that all the big players had Video meeting software that is exactly like Zoom, more or less, pre pandemic, and they were still losing out to Zoom, just at a much slower rate. I recall Zoom pre pandemic was still a profitable business[0][1]. Not the gang busters it was during the pandemic, no, a good, profitable business none the less. So whether Google or Microsoft or Slack can win now is debatable. They should have won this out before hand too, if you look at how things are stacked on paper. I don't know that the pandemic has changed the fact that these businesses are playing catch up in users minds.

Ironically, if anyone is going to threaten Zoom, its likely to be Microsoft with Teams, and only because so many organizations are already on Office 365 and Microsoft seems to be sinking some sales channel hooks into Teams specifically, and arguably Teams is good enough and has most of the same extension points as Zoom does, including its own add on store and API for most major integrations[2][3][4].

It seems Google is having a lot less luck here, first hand experience being that every business I've worked for in the last few years have been Google Workspace customers, yet still prefer to use Zoom over Google Meeting, despite Google Meeting being effectively free with the rest of the Google Workspace product.

I'm still mind boggled that Slack didn't capitalize on video meetings, they had all the technology and know-how, however execution matters like anything else, and I don't think they've been able to entirely execute on adding strong robust video offering to their core product.

[0]: https://investors.zoom.us/news-releases/news-release-details...

[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/06/zoom-earnings-q1-2020.html

[2]: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2019/03/1...

[3]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/platform/sam...

[4]: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/find-teams-apps-d...

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#85
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All your comment really shows is how little you know about how many people it takes to run a large business, and that you don't really understand what Peleton do. Peleton design and manufacture their own equipment, they ship it globally, they have their own buyers and supply chains for that, They also build the tech that runs their business, from the customer portal to the video integration in the products. They make…

Those thing need people, and for that size makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is why do all of that themselves, instead of using third party providers. Bringing more things in house often doesn’t even make sense if you’re a huge behemoth. But even then, it’s a great way to make your company fail, as you lose focus on what value you’re providing.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if they do outsource some of those things. For example, they probably use ADP or similar for payroll. And they probably use outside production companies and trainers for their videos. But you still need internal people to manage vendors and deal with problems and people to manage those people.

It's a pretty common reaction to scratch your head and wonder what all those people in $DEPARTMENT are doing all day. Some of them are probably wondering the same thing about your department.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#86
post #17

Is it just me or is $40 a month too much for the content they provide? I would spend a couple thousand on fancy exercise equipment, or maybe get one as a gift for my parents but the required subscription gives me rent seeking vibes.

It's a lot cheaper than a monthly gym membership, but way more than say, Apple Fitness and others offer. Having not used their software or hardware, I'd assume that for people purchasing a really expensive bike, $40/mo isn't bad. Still...it feels steep.

Waaat? How much is gym membership in the US then if $40 is much cheaper?

Edit: Thanks everybody for the explanation. In my head, gym == myself + good ol' iron. It seems that that is cheap in the US as well as in Europe :)

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#87
post #17

Is it just me or is $40 a month too much for the content they provide? I would spend a couple thousand on fancy exercise equipment, or maybe get one as a gift for my parents but the required subscription gives me rent seeking vibes.

It's a tough sell for me. I pay $40 a month for the whole family at the local rec center with multiple pools, water slides for the kids, an indoor running track and every piece of workout equipment you could want.

How much do you spend a month getting here, in fuel and in the time at the wheel?

The Peloton's value for many is that the workout in within few steps and 30 seconds from being in the home office chair.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty cheap compared to other spin classes or gym memberships.

Apples to oranges comparison, those provide the bike and the space.

You can make the comparison work if you amortize the cost. Soul cycle is $30/class; peloton is $40/mo and $1600 to get started. Assuming a 13mo year of 4wk months and 3 classes a week, soul cycle costs $360/mo and peloton costs $40/mo. In 5 months you break even and keep a workout bike that retails second hand for $1000-1300.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#89
post #17

Is it just me or is $40 a month too much for the content they provide? I would spend a couple thousand on fancy exercise equipment, or maybe get one as a gift for my parents but the required subscription gives me rent seeking vibes.

I don't understand how you expect the question of what "x" is worth to be anything other than subjective.

It's like asking whether any other digital media subscription is worth it - my wife follows certain instructors and says she really enjoys the rides/classes - there is a certain element of "star power" in this space; the production values are excellent; the integration with the bike is top-notch.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#90
post #62

Did Peloton ever have a real business. They were competing with $200 bikes on Amazon and an iPad.

> They were competing with $200 bikes on Amazon and an iPad

Not really when they were selling a far more premium lifestyle experience.

Peloton is an aspirational buy.

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