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Wall Street ruined the Roomba and then blamed Lina Khan

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Re: Wall Street ruined the Roomba and then blamed Lina Khan

#11

Post by KerrAvon »

caesil wrote: post #9
echelon wrote: post #4

This is a fantastic video essay on iRobot's strategy/leadership mistakes. The company was distracted and stubbornly out of tune with what consumers wanted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44XYQepBF7g The patent expiry sealed the deal.

Why not let Amazon take a stab at turning things around, then? It's better that they fail? I don't get it.

couple things

- tbh, I think the Amazon deal doesn't matter much in the long run. The damage had been done earlier.

- why give Bezos any more free money? He's already rich enough.

Re: Wall Street ruined the Roomba and then blamed Lina Khan

#13

Post by 7thaccount »

monero-xmr wrote: post #8

Hard for me to understand how the consumer was protected by preventing Amazon from acquiring them. Only for Chinese firm to get for cheap in bankruptcy. But maybe I’m not educated enough in socialism to understand the nuances

Possibly an unintended consequence. Those abound in our governing systems as you're rightfully complaining about.

On the other hand, competition is good for consumers and letting Microsoft and Amazon use unfair tactics to crush the competition or their large revenues to just buy up all competition isn't good either. That is part of the problem today in that practically every industry is a monopoly or near total monopoly (maybe there are 2-3 firms colluding). There are no incentives to innovate or keep prices competitive in such a gilded-age system. There was a reason we broke up all the robber barons. There is also the hazard when you have businesses that are so large that they effectively control everything and the government can no longer regulate them. High inflation is at least partly coming from this lack of competition. There is also the issue of the money supply where we degrade our currency to make it easier to service the debt. That is also a really big component here.

Re: Wall Street ruined the Roomba and then blamed Lina Khan

#14

Post by BeetleB »

xnx wrote: post #10

Roomba screwed up for sure, but they found a way out with Amazon until US consumer "protection" shut it down.

"The FTC didn’t bring a challenge, but nevertheless, in 2024, Amazon and iRobot called off the deal."

How did they shut it down?

Re: Wall Street ruined the Roomba and then blamed Lina Khan

#15

Post by BeetleB »

caesil wrote: post #9
echelon wrote: post #4

This is a fantastic video essay on iRobot's strategy/leadership mistakes. The company was distracted and stubbornly out of tune with what consumers wanted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44XYQepBF7g The patent expiry sealed the deal.

Why not let Amazon take a stab at turning things around, then? It's better that they fail? I don't get it.

> Why not let Amazon take a stab at turning things around, then?

The point the article is making is that iRobot's bad decisions are the reason the company was failing. Blaming regulators for a poor acquisition outcome may be fair, but they were a very minor part of the outcome.

Re: Wall Street ruined the Roomba and then blamed Lina Khan

#16

Post by dcgudeman »

KerrAvon wrote: post #11
caesil wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not let Amazon take a stab at turning things around, then? It's better that they fail? I don't get it.

couple things - tbh, I think the Amazon deal doesn't matter much in the long run. The damage had been done earlier. - why give Bezos any more free money? He's already rich enough.

Free money? I honestly don't understand comments like this. It's as if you aren't even trying to make sense. Amazon would have been bailing out Roomba so if anything this would have cost Bezos money.

Re: Wall Street ruined the Roomba and then blamed Lina Khan

#18

Post by lotsofpulp »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #7
lotsofpulp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see evidence that iRobot vacuums would have been competitive with Chinese ones, simply because the moat does not exist (there is no secret sauce that makes it difficult to make a competing product). As for the rest of the article, it’s not Wall Street’s fault the government doesn’t pay iRobot enough for research (nor should it).

As the article states they were more than vacuums- they also did defense work and research. They gutted that for higher short term gains. Offshoring to China also likely helped China learn to build their own.

If they were getting paid enough for defense work and research, then they would not have gutted it. But the government should do R&D itself anyway.

Re: Wall Street ruined the Roomba and then blamed Lina Khan

#20

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #18
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article states they were more than vacuums- they also did defense work and research. They gutted that for higher short term gains. Offshoring to China also likely helped China learn to build their own.

If they were getting paid enough for defense work and research, then they would not have gutted it. But the government should do R&D itself anyway.

You should try reading the article, it mentions that too.
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