Live data from Hacker News

The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

nytimes.com

231–240 of 245 posts

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#231
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not just that Amazon could or could not turn profits at will. Turning a profit (paying dividends) or reinvesting is a decision every investor relations team must make, simplifying the subject it is based on whether you predict your company will get the investor more money (by stock price growth/future dividends) than if he invested in other equaly risky set of assets. I don't believe this is the case for Moviep…

It’s funny to think of IR departments deciding on one of the most strategic capital allocation issues at any company (or maybe you consider that the CFO is part of the investor relations team, that wouldn’t be completely wrong but it’s not the usual definition).

Yes, IR doesn't make the actual decision. That was said to me by a IR I knew in a previous company. Granted the decision making was obviously above his head and included other strategic decisions and the intents of the key stockholders, to say IR makes this decision is an exageration, but he produced the data to support and justify that decision. How much is that number flexible I guess depends on market regulation.

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#232
post #180
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gemini recently increased fees to 1% so it's now far more expensive than GDAX.

Wow, that’s insane. I can no longer recommend retail buyers use Gemini if they’re charging 1%. Very disappointing.

Guess it's Robinhood then. Free to buy BTC.

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#233
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla and Uber aren't going anywhere. There's way too much invested for them not to secure another tiny drop in the bucket to keep going. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea ("throwing good money after bad"), but that's the reality of what will happen, especially since it will probably be someone else's money as they dilute.

Look at Ford http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-f-150-truck-production-m... A fire accident of a supplier of Ford caused this, it wasn't even on their hands. Any freak/unlucky accident plus Tesla being tight with cash and time you do the math.

Oh ya, I hear you. I worked at GM in the early 2000s and I remember personally dealing with an issue where we needed over 100,000 of a particular part for a recall and the vendor could only supply about 2000/month (not including what we needed for current production). Most of the other major automakers also used that part and they needed them for recalls too! It was insane.

I've been in automotive ever since and worked for a number of the major automakers and I currently do a lot of consulting for one automaker (not Tesla). So, I understand very well how one tiny thing can really throw a wrench in production (or sales, or service).

But, Tesla has an illogical amount of goodwill right now and they can't seem to burn through it. So, until that goodwill really starts to dwindle, there are going to be investors willing to take preferred stock.

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#234
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you buy the tickets online whe you want to go to the cinema? what do you get by subscribing? how much would it cost?

In the UK, several cinema chains offer subscriptions where, by buying an annual subscription, you can see as many films as you like. The fee is equivalent to somewhere between 2 and 4 movies per month. If you're visiting the cinema very regularly, this saves money. They can do this because they own the theatre, so when a subscription is used, it only costs them the _opportunity_ cost of one seat - which is very littl…

1) theaters pay a sliding percentage of the ticket to the distributor, as high as 90% in the first week(s) a film is out, dropping the longer the film has been in theaters. This means (unless the chain is cheating the distributor, which admittedly has happened for brief periods) that seat is a very real cost to the theater.

2) with reserved seating, I'm much less likely to buy a ticket if the showing is almost full, so those filled seats can reduce additional ticket sales.

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#235
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that’s insane. I can no longer recommend retail buyers use Gemini if they’re charging 1%. Very disappointing.

Guess it's Robinhood then. Free to buy BTC.

Note that you can't transfer BTC into or out of Robinhood so you may be stuck if they increase fees in the future.

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#236
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All it would take for it to end is for investors to stop investing in money-burners.

Isn't that a tautology, though? My point is that actual[1] investors have an incentive to pour their money into money-burners because if just one of those initially money-burning is the next Google, Facebook, Amazon, or whatever overwhelming winner-take-all breakout profitable company, they will have more than justified dumping all that cash into the losers. [1] for lack of a better term. I've never quite understood…

Your point is well taken.

I think I just don't agree that government stepping in is the only way to end the cycle. Seems to me it can/will die of natural causes when the "bubble" bursts.

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#237
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that a tautology, though? My point is that actual[1] investors have an incentive to pour their money into money-burners because if just one of those initially money-burning is the next Google, Facebook, Amazon, or whatever overwhelming winner-take-all breakout profitable company, they will have more than justified dumping all that cash into the losers. [1] for lack of a better term. I've never quite understood…

Your point is well taken. I think I just don't agree that government stepping in is the only way to end the cycle. Seems to me it can/will die of natural causes when the "bubble" bursts.

But what bubble? Where's the irrationally increasing asset values at a macro level? Where's the "greater fool" that's buying it all up?

Without that, there's nothing to burst.

Moreover, this has been going on for so long, at least since (before) the dot-com boom, and we've had quite a few economic downturns. It's not very credible that any bubble would survive that.

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Moviepass subscriber, they create a lot of value for me. I can go to any movie I want at any local theater. That is a lot better than subscribing to five different plans, one for each theater.

I'd counter that MoviePass is not creating any value for you, they're literally just paying for you. That's not anything special.

I disagree. They are saving me a ton of money. To me as a customer, that is a lot of value.

I sure hope that Moviepass and the theaters can figure out a way to make it work.

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Moviepass subscriber, they create a lot of value for me. I can go to any movie I want at any local theater. That is a lot better than subscribing to five different plans, one for each theater.

Well you can just subscribe to the theater closest to you. Why would you want to go to the ones across town?

I have 3 theaters within a 20 minute drive. I might choose one over the other because of movie availability and showtimes.

Re: The Entire Economy Is MoviePass Now

#240
post #16

> The king of money-losers, of course, is Amazon, which went years without turning a profit. Instead, it plowed billions of dollars back into its business The key difference with Amazon is that Amazon could choose to be profitable at any time- just raise prices ever so slightly, reducing growth in customer demand, and the stop building out its enormous logistics empire and new businesses. Amazon could have had profit…

Building out warehouses does not hurt earnings. The whole point of accounting is to try to match revenue with cost. If you build a warehouse you don't expense it one time. It gets expensed over time. If they develop software than that is treated as expense or buy movies that gets expensed. Their core retail business is not that profitable. It goes from 0-3%. Its pretty much the same as walmart or any other retailer.…

In one quarterly earrings reports, Amazon as a whole earned $500m- of that, AWS earned $600m of it.
Post reply on HN