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Amazon, Facebook, Google, AirBnB, Uber, Match, etcetera are all middlemen. They provide an interface between parties who wish to exchange information, goods, s
by ISL 9y ago
Amazon, Facebook, Google, AirBnB, Uber, Match, etcetera are all middlemen.
They provide an interface between parties who wish to exchange information, goods, services, and time.
The nature of middle-people businesses is changing, but they're not going away.
- agumonkey 9y agoGoogle used to provide rare value: large scale of organization of information. They also philanthropically raised standards f the web: way better mail service, map service.
- s73ver_ 9y agoThey raised the standards, but you're delusional if you think they did it philanthropically. They did it because they thought they could get more info to sell ads.
- agumonkey 9y agoOh yeah, I missed an edit I never meant to say it was out of pure altruism. But it was a new kind of move at the time.
- radix07 9y agoRight, but the point is how many jobs does Amazon create delivering all those goods to you compared to say a Sears or Walmart? The modern day middlemen are doing a better job with way less people. Hence the Retail Apocalypse...
- emodendroket 9y agoBut if you read the article it describes a lot of businesses which are profitable and could plod along, except they're saddled with tons of debt from leveraged buyouts.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Digory 9y agoThat struck me as bogus. In other words, they're saying the businesses aren't profitable enough to service debt loads that were thought to be sustainable debt loads a few years ago. That still points to lower than expected retail profit. Interest rates have been unusually low for more than a decade, so it's not like a credit spike changed the assumptions.
- emodendroket 9y agoIt calls out some of this debt being from 2007, and some cursory checking on my part suggests things were picking up again to a notable degree more recently. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uslbo/cheap-financing-fuels-u-s-leveraged-buyout-boom-idUSBRE88J1GV20120920 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uslbo/cheap-financing-fuel... Anyway, at best it contributes to a negative feedback loop.
- pixl97 9y ago>thought to be sustainable debt loads a few years ago. No, the debt was never sustainable. Essentially the banks allowed loans which were gigantic ponzi schemes. Retail: "Our growth will continue forever!" Banks: Hmm, we got bit pretty hard on these home loans and need somewhere else to make money, "Forever growth is like infinite money, I like money!", "Here is 10 billion dollars, just remember to pay us back in 2017".