Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B • Hacker News Board

Re: Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B

#391

Post by brisance » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 2:12 AM UTC

xkjkls wrote: post #373

brisance wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not since Bloomberg is now pulling numbers out of its ass? A billion MAU with projected $10 billion annual revenue gives a 10x annual revenue valuation. Apple has long surpassed a billion iOS units sold, and annual revenue is $230 billion, give or take, so it should be worth $2.3 trillion. Not bad for an inflation adjusted acquisition worth $654 million.

There are a lot of reasons why a fast growing business like Instagram should be trading at higher multiples than Apple. Also the value in NeXT came from Steve Jobs, not NeXT itself.

And Apple is not a "fast growing business"? Have you looked into their "Services" category? IG's REVENUE is claimed to be $10 billion. Apple's Services NET SALES was $9.19 billion. In the last QUARTER. So, yes, Apple is a "fast growing business", and is growing faster than Instagram. If Bloomberg was fair, Apple's services alone is a $400 billion company.

Taking a long-term view, IG's revenue comes from advertising i.e. it's a one-trick pony, just like Facebook. Apple is a diversified company; even though iPhone makes up >60% revenue, is anyone with an iota of financial sense going to complain that it's a bad thing?

Re: Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B

#392

Post by thanatropism » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 12:43 PM UTC

skinnymuch wrote: post #380

thanatropism wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the whole thing could still prove to be the mother of all bubbles. For one: we still don't really really understand network effects. There's huge value to being Facebook (you're forced to be there because all your friends are there and most nowhere else), but people also switch platforms for reasons that are not excellently understood. And when I say bubble I don't mean this or that company -- Silly Valle…

I have to echo austenallred. Depending on the month, I’ll spend a similar amount on Facebook and Instagram ads and get good results from them. Instagram‘s ad platform and revenue keep growing at a crazy pace too. They are also the only two social networks I advertise on.

That's not the point, though.

The point is that due to network effects (which lock users in to a platform), ads are monopoly-priced. But network effects are not super well understood and platform collapses do happen.

So we know the ads market to be large -- or at least people on HN are testifying to that effect, but we don't know that Facebook or MySpace or Lycos get to appropriate it to a long enough period of time that current valuations make sense on a no-bullshit NPV basis.

A fair point was made elsewhere that multiples (which are more or less like stock market folklore, but still allow for comparison across multiple industries) in these companies are relatively modest.

Re: Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B

#393

Post by zyxwvu » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 11:37 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #166

zyxwvu wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are now a consumer. Welcome to the machine. Your primary function to society is to consume. Congratulations.

As opposed to smoke a bong and explore the wild outdoors?

Not everything has to be related to marijuana man.

Your life also doesn't have to revolve around finding something new to buy/consume.

Re: Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More Than $100B

#394

Post by code_duck » Sat, Jul 07, 2018, 4:05 PM UTC

CodeCube wrote: post #223

xkjkls wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think given their UI/model it is pretty difficult to have any long form discussion on Instagram. The "news" part of the newsfeed as always been FB's killer app. Or at least that and event planning, though I think it's not impossible for Instagram to develop a product around that.

I keep hearing (anecdotally, of course), that people are starting to prefer Instagram because long form discussions are more difficult there. They seem to be seeking an escape from the news. Fair point about the event planning ... if FB were to cross-launch the sane event planning DB on instagram and whatsapp, I suspect that would be pretty much a killer app.

People in my circle of glass artist related accounts post a lot less politics on IG than FB. It is harder to repost articles, as well as have discussions as you noted (I think I lived through a week where IG was experimenting with adding threaded comments, though). I find FB’s curation of political posts to be poor and the venue to be an embarrassing one in which to discuss politics. So, I use IG when I want to connect with these folks.