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> This is patently false: the best startups make money eating other people's lunch, and they concentrate this money in the hands of the founders. No, they conc
by wtbob 11y ago
> This is patently false: the best startups make money eating other people's lunch, and they concentrate this money in the hands of the founders.
No, they concentrate the profits in the hands of their founders, but the big winners are the millions of consumers. Yeah, Jeff Bezos is rich, but not as rich as a world with Amazon in it
- conanbatt 11y agoThe point in question is that it is debatable that a startup like Uber, or Airbnb create absolute wealth: that if airbnb is worth 1billion dollars, they created 1 billion in value, because they also damanged other industries. Facebook can be super successful, but more people use it at work that they used to, is there a negative value effect of its services in society? Are cabbies poorer because of Uber? A huge part of startup growth is effectively eating other industries, something always ommited in the argument "we create value, we are just making the pie bigger". Business are supposed to devour each other, its just a bad image to give.
- tonyedgecombe 11y agoI don't feel rich when I live in a town with no bookshop, beyond a certain point the availability of cheap goods is pretty meaningless.
- edanm 11y agoUnfortunately, that's not your decision. It's everyone's. You might personally dislike the choices other people make, but clearly other people do think saving money via buying at Amazon is worth it.
- tonyedgecombe 11y agoSadly I think you are right, although the French do have an interesting approach to this.
- jrsnyder 11y agoWhat is the French approach?
- fixermark 11y agoThey fined Amazon daily because they were found to be in violation of the law that protects the bookseller's guild against deep discounts. Last I heard, Amazon responded by paying the fine... And continues to pay the fine, because the value of the French market still exceeds the fine.
- pasquinelli 11y agoi don't have enough f's on my keyboard to pffft hard enough.