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I sense a lot of naive optimism in your approach. You understand the goal of any business, especially an internet business, is to become a monopoly right? Loo

I sense a lot of naive optimism in your approach. You understand the goal of any business, especially an internet business, is to become a monopoly right? Look at Amazon, Google, FB, etc. They only became profitable once they became monopolies, and thus could set their own prices based on whatever metrics they chose. The reason startups take outside funding is so that they can become a monopoly in a given market, and then charge customers whatever they want. Don't fall for the marketing hype. Startups don't save the world. Scientists, doctors and inventors do. Startups just make a few people very, very rich at the expense of their customers by selling them mostly crap they don't need or want, using psychological manipulation (i.e. marketing). Once you understand that this isn't some noble quest, you can finally begin to understand how to play the game (of thrones).

PKop 10y ago
Startups just make a few people very, very rich at the expense of their customers by selling them mostly crap they don't need or want. This is laughably false for at least two of the examples (Amazon, Google) you've mentioned in your own post. Millions of people use these services everyday to make their lives better. Thousands of employees work for good pay at these companies. Is it all scam? Of course not.
alvarosm 10y ago
Posts like this are much needed in HN
aherlambang 10y ago
I would have to disagree with the goal of any business is to be a monopoly. There are lots of examples of successful business out there who did not monopoly the market. I'd also have to disagree that startups sell mostly crap they don't need or want. Uber & AirBnB definitely provides something valuable that most humans would appreciate of. If you're talking about products such as Snapchat or Instagram, that's a different genre of product. It's a vitamin type of product not a pain killer.
- srunni 10y ago
  > I would have to disagree with the goal of any business is to be a monopoly. > There are lots of examples of successful business out there who did not monopoly the market. Such as? If you cannot eliminate competition within your given market, marginal profit will eventually be driven to zero. The internet amplifies this challenge because it is not geographically constrained (minimal transaction costs) and software amplifies this challenge because of zero marginal cost (creating massive economies of scale). You can find more on this in the works of Michael Porter (http://amzn.com/0684841487 http://amzn.com/0684841487, http://amzn.com/0684841460 http://amzn.com/0684841460) and Peter Thiel (http://amzn.com/0804139296 http://amzn.com/0804139296). Zero to One discusses how many seemingly successful non-monopolies are actually either monopolies pretending not to be one or non-monopolies that are not as successful as they portray themselves to be.

PKop 10y ago

Startups just make a few people very, very rich at the expense of their customers by selling them mostly crap they don't need or want. This is laughably false for at least two of the examples (Amazon, Google) you've mentioned in your own post. Millions of people use these services everyday to make their lives better. Thousands of employees work for good pay at these companies. Is it all scam? Of course not.

alvarosm 10y ago

Posts like this are much needed in HN

aherlambang 10y ago

I would have to disagree with the goal of any business is to be a monopoly. There are lots of examples of successful business out there who did not monopoly the market. I'd also have to disagree that startups sell mostly crap they don't need or want. Uber & AirBnB definitely provides something valuable that most humans would appreciate of. If you're talking about products such as Snapchat or Instagram, that's a different genre of product. It's a vitamin type of product not a pain killer.

srunni 10y ago
> I would have to disagree with the goal of any business is to be a monopoly. > There are lots of examples of successful business out there who did not monopoly the market. Such as? If you cannot eliminate competition within your given market, marginal profit will eventually be driven to zero. The internet amplifies this challenge because it is not geographically constrained (minimal transaction costs) and software amplifies this challenge because of zero marginal cost (creating massive economies of scale). You can find more on this in the works of Michael Porter (http://amzn.com/0684841487 http://amzn.com/0684841487, http://amzn.com/0684841460 http://amzn.com/0684841460) and Peter Thiel (http://amzn.com/0804139296 http://amzn.com/0804139296). Zero to One discusses how many seemingly successful non-monopolies are actually either monopolies pretending not to be one or non-monopolies that are not as successful as they portray themselves to be.