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I'm not sure it's necessarily related to why it doesn't have a paywall (I don't think bloomberg news is opposed to money), but Bloomberg the company started sel
by dave_sullivan 10y ago
I'm not sure it's necessarily related to why it doesn't have a paywall (I don't think bloomberg news is opposed to money), but Bloomberg the company started selling computer terminals on wall street in the 80s and made a fortune. Basically, "Hey stock broker, how'd you like to look up stock quotes instantly on a computer instead of..." I'm actually not sure what they were doing before, paper trading slips I guess? "Sort it out at the end of the day"?
"Selling networked computers to banks" wasn't actually as obvious then as you'd think. Wall Street was a relatively boring place and went crazy in the 80s, kind of coinciding with the rise of Bloomberg terminals.
These days, a bloomberg terminal costs $24,000 a year, for a computer and a subscription to Bloomberg's information service, which ostensibly gets high quality and timely market information. It's a good business.
Bloomberg is a really interesting startup story overall.
- yellowstuff 10y agoFrom about 1870 to the 1960s stock quotes were communicated using stock tickers that communicated over telegraph lines and printed thin strips of paper. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticker_tape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticker_tape The system worked well until the 1960s when the volume of trading on busy days overwhelmed the system, sometimes delaying the quotes for hours. There had been plans to build a computer network already, but the data outages made it an urgent issue. The classic book Business Adventures has a chapter on the chaos sowed by the failure of ticker tape. https://www.amazon.com/Business-Adventures-Twelve-Classic-Street/dp/1497644895/ref=sr_1_1 https://www.amazon.com/Business-Adventures-Twelve-Classic-St...
- neffy 10y agoHistorical trivia - it also overwhelmed the system in 1929 - adding to the panic then were long delays in stock prices being updated regionally.