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BS. Amazon operated at a loss until very recently and people were NOT buying books online because on-line payments only existed in a hand full of countries and

BS. Amazon operated at a loss until very recently and people were NOT buying books online because on-line payments only existed in a hand full of countries and the tech itself was immensely immature.

segmondy 8y ago
Amazon MADE A CHOICE to operate at a loss. They did so because they invested everything back into the business to grow. Their loss was not because they didn't have sales or because they were giving their products away for free at a discount, but because of investment towards future growth. As can be seen, they went from a bookstore, to an ecommerce platform, to having shipping logistics, streaming service, cloud provider, etc.
- decentralised 8y ago
  I'm not sure why you believe we are disagreeing. They chose to operate at a loss because they couldn't generate enough business to do anything different. Their shareholders wouldn't have allowed for it otherwise.
  - shkkmo 8y ago
    No, they chose to operate at a loss because they wanted to continue investing their positive margins from the large amounts of business they were doing back into building infrastructure so they could do even more business. Now name a single crypto currency start-up that is making able to even cover their own operating expenses, let alone invest their cash flow into growth.
    - decentralised 8y ago
      Most crypto startups create open-source software and don't sell anything neither do they follow a for-profit business model so you are looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place.
      - nradov 8y ago
        Non-profit organizations are not "startups" by definition. A startup is a for-profit business oriented toward rapid growth. There's nothing wrong with founding a non-profit, it's just not a startup.
lkrubner 8y ago
You are playing games with words. Amazon was making money in the sense that everything they sold had healthy margins. They lost money only because Jeff Bezos believed in the future and continued to invest heavily in the future. He could have stopped investing and taken profits at any moment that he wanted to. But he wanted to keep going and build something bigger than what he had. Cryptocurrencies don't compare.
- decentralised 8y ago
  >You are playing games with words. Amazon was making money in the sense that everything they sold had healthy margins. You got to be kidding me. Even today Amazon sells by undercutting profit margins from competitors!
  - MereInterest 8y ago
    That is absolutely irrelevant in every respect. Company A has costs of $10 and sells at $15. Company B has costs of $8 and sells at $11. Company B has undercut Company A. Company B still has a healthy margin on what it sells.
    - decentralised 8y ago
      The op claimed that Amazon operates with healthy profit margins which isn't really the case... "your margin is my opportunity"
      - ajiang 8y ago
        Amazon has pretty incredible margins as a business. They invest the profit margin into new ventures and growth.
      - richardknop 8y ago
        Amazon has very good margins, what are you talking about? They bring in tons of cash every quarter.
ajross 8y ago
That's confusing profit and revenue. Operating at a loss while your market share and total income is growing and you are building out infrastructure and investing in new technologies is not remotely the same thing as insolvency. No, Amazon wasn't putting money in the bank in 1999-01. Any dummy could look at their business model and say "Yup, there's a big market for selling junk on the internet". With this blockchain startups, where's the equivalent? They never made any revenue. They never had a real market. What money they did make was predicated entirely on the continued solvency of the existing coin markets.
- decentralised 8y ago
  It's true that the most successful cryptocurrencies doesn't generate revenue to any _one_ business, but that's because it is open source and the tokens themselves are sold on secondary markets, not by the developers themselves.
- EastSmith 8y ago
  Ripple and Stellar are working on disrupting financial industries: instant and cheap money transfers. So they are creating value for their users. How they, Stellar and Ripple, are making money is not clear to me though. I know IBM will be making money out of using Stellar for sure.
twtw 8y ago
in that time period, Amazon both operated at a loss and made money. Fun how that works.

BS. Amazon operated at a loss until very recently and people were NOT buying books online because on-line payments only existed in a hand full of countries and the tech itself was immensely immature.

segmondy 8y ago

Amazon MADE A CHOICE to operate at a loss. They did so because they invested everything back into the business to grow. Their loss was not because they didn't have sales or because they were giving their products away for free at a discount, but because of investment towards future growth. As can be seen, they went from a bookstore, to an ecommerce platform, to having shipping logistics, streaming service, cloud provider, etc.

decentralised 8y ago
I'm not sure why you believe we are disagreeing. They chose to operate at a loss because they couldn't generate enough business to do anything different. Their shareholders wouldn't have allowed for it otherwise.
- shkkmo 8y ago
  No, they chose to operate at a loss because they wanted to continue investing their positive margins from the large amounts of business they were doing back into building infrastructure so they could do even more business. Now name a single crypto currency start-up that is making able to even cover their own operating expenses, let alone invest their cash flow into growth.
  - decentralised 8y ago
    Most crypto startups create open-source software and don't sell anything neither do they follow a for-profit business model so you are looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place.
    - nradov 8y ago
      Non-profit organizations are not "startups" by definition. A startup is a for-profit business oriented toward rapid growth. There's nothing wrong with founding a non-profit, it's just not a startup.

lkrubner 8y ago

You are playing games with words. Amazon was making money in the sense that everything they sold had healthy margins. They lost money only because Jeff Bezos believed in the future and continued to invest heavily in the future. He could have stopped investing and taken profits at any moment that he wanted to. But he wanted to keep going and build something bigger than what he had. Cryptocurrencies don't compare.

decentralised 8y ago
>You are playing games with words. Amazon was making money in the sense that everything they sold had healthy margins. You got to be kidding me. Even today Amazon sells by undercutting profit margins from competitors!
- MereInterest 8y ago
  That is absolutely irrelevant in every respect. Company A has costs of $10 and sells at $15. Company B has costs of $8 and sells at $11. Company B has undercut Company A. Company B still has a healthy margin on what it sells.
  - decentralised 8y ago
    The op claimed that Amazon operates with healthy profit margins which isn't really the case... "your margin is my opportunity"
    - ajiang 8y ago
      Amazon has pretty incredible margins as a business. They invest the profit margin into new ventures and growth.
    - richardknop 8y ago
      Amazon has very good margins, what are you talking about? They bring in tons of cash every quarter.

ajross 8y ago

That's confusing profit and revenue. Operating at a loss while your market share and total income is growing and you are building out infrastructure and investing in new technologies is not remotely the same thing as insolvency. No, Amazon wasn't putting money in the bank in 1999-01. Any dummy could look at their business model and say "Yup, there's a big market for selling junk on the internet". With this blockchain startups, where's the equivalent? They never made any revenue. They never had a real market. What money they did make was predicated entirely on the continued solvency of the existing coin markets.

decentralised 8y ago
It's true that the most successful cryptocurrencies doesn't generate revenue to any _one_ business, but that's because it is open source and the tokens themselves are sold on secondary markets, not by the developers themselves.
EastSmith 8y ago
Ripple and Stellar are working on disrupting financial industries: instant and cheap money transfers. So they are creating value for their users. How they, Stellar and Ripple, are making money is not clear to me though. I know IBM will be making money out of using Stellar for sure.

twtw 8y ago

in that time period, Amazon both operated at a loss and made money. Fun how that works.