41–50 of 53 posts
Who are those parties? How much reliance do they have on borrowed money? That's the big question - who are the losers when the bubble pops?
Startups will eventually have to stop giving out free VC money to acquire users. I think the user acquisition cost currently is way to high. Companies give away between $10-$25 (or $1000 for new drivers on Lyft) just to try their service. There are no major differentiators between many of them apart from free credits. Companies race to acquire users like how Groupon did in the coupon business when tens of clones popp…
The main arguments against there being a bubble seem to be that things aren't as obviously a bubble as they were before the previous tech bubble. This is all a businessperson's approach to analyzing this situation. Looking at it from a technical perspective: there are two kinds of companies out there. There are companies that do something people care about and ones that don't. Think about Twitter for a second. If Twi…
> Even if I used Twitter, it wouldn't be hard to just go find all the same people on Facebook or whatever and follow them there. The fact that Twitter overlaps with other services like Facebook doesn't mean it's not valuable. For example, to take one of your own examples: > If Google decided to start charging $10/mo for search? A lot of people would pay it. "Even if I used Google, it wouldn't be hard to just go enter…
To this excellent article I would add one fact. A huge difference between the dot com bubble and now is that Sarbanes-Oxley makes IPOs a lot less appealing. That is the most likely reason why acquisitions and late funding rounds have replaced IPOs. This also means that the amount of money that can pour into a bubble is less than the last time around. That said, bubbles usually are based a new theory about valuation f…
I think your theory about social networks is completely wrong. All social networks are not the same in terms of the subset they compete in. Instagram in photos, and WhatsApp in messaging competed with Facebook in a subset of social networking. All Facebook has to do is acquire winners in the new major subsets that bloom, and then the competition is over for each. It's a perpetually affordable game for FB to play, bec…
Second, the "buy competitors" approach only works as long as competitors are willing to sell. Eventually one won't. Don't forget that Facebook tried to buy Snapchat for $3B in 2013, and failed. Based on emails leaked last year in the Sony fiasco, if they can beat Facebook, they will. And they believe that they have a chance. And if they fail, they won't be the last competitor.
But we'll all get to see what the future holds. You have a theory. I have a theory. Read http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-ceo-evan-spiegel-has... for the theory that Snapchat's CEO has. Eventually one of us will be proven right.
To this excellent article I would add one fact. A huge difference between the dot com bubble and now is that Sarbanes-Oxley makes IPOs a lot less appealing. That is the most likely reason why acquisitions and late funding rounds have replaced IPOs. This also means that the amount of money that can pour into a bubble is less than the last time around. That said, bubbles usually are based a new theory about valuation f…
I think your theory about social networks is completely wrong. All social networks are not the same in terms of the subset they compete in. Instagram in photos, and WhatsApp in messaging competed with Facebook in a subset of social networking. All Facebook has to do is acquire winners in the new major subsets that bloom, and then the competition is over for each. It's a perpetually affordable game for FB to play, bec…
Instead there's Instagram, dominating the niche.
Instagram isn't just not a competitor, they're a whole new line of defense for Facebook.
It was a really smart play.
I think the strongest indication that there is a bubble is all the Smart People nervously chattering about there not being a bubble.
“Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful” - Warren Buffett
Calling this a "tech bubble" seems like an obfuscation of the issue. Biotech companies aren't being overinflated. Hardware companies like Tesla aren't being overinflated. This is just the HTML5/ mobile app bubble, or in other words ".com bubble 2: the media companies disguised as technology firms strike back."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's weird how this justification for "look a bubble!" has been consistently voted to the top of HN for its entire existence. Smart people have been chatting about their being or not being a bubble longer than Hacker News has been a thing. > Is 'Web 2.0' Another Bubble? (2006) [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116679843912957776
Just because something is a long-lasting bubble doesn't meant it's not a bubble. The housing bubble lasted what, the better part of two decades?
The main arguments against there being a bubble seem to be that things aren't as obviously a bubble as they were before the previous tech bubble. This is all a businessperson's approach to analyzing this situation. Looking at it from a technical perspective: there are two kinds of companies out there. There are companies that do something people care about and ones that don't. Think about Twitter for a second. If Twi…
> Even if I used Twitter, it wouldn't be hard to just go find all the same people on Facebook or whatever and follow them there. The fact that Twitter overlaps with other services like Facebook doesn't mean it's not valuable. For example, to take one of your own examples: > If Google decided to start charging $10/mo for search? A lot of people would pay it. "Even if I used Google, it wouldn't be hard to just go enter…
Okay, go try that and compare the results.
It's not about overlapping, it's about it being equivalent. Bing and DuckDuckGo are not equivalent to Google. They are inferior products. That may change (I hope it does) but for now that is how it is.