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Exit unicorns, pursued by bears
- neonate 7y agohttps://archive.md/5d7Kx https://archive.md/5d7Kx
- edoceo 7y agoThis is giving a 403 error from CloudFlare? Am I the only one?
- austhrow743 7y agoArchive blocks CloudFlare. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828702
- chipotle_coyote 7y agoI hadn't known Lime had effectively shut down in most markets, although upon reflection it's fairly obvious that would happen. (Incidentally, while I couldn't get the archive.md link that neonate published to work, either, I could read the full article simply by disabling JavaScript and reloading the page. It's remarkable how many paywalled magazines this works with now. It's almost as if rewriting an essentially all-text web site to be a snazzy web app that pushes all the smarts to the client side has some drawbacks! Who could have predicted.)
- killion 7y agoI didn't know that Lime shut down either. I haven't been out to see but I wonder if they collected up their scooters, or if they are all just sitting with their batteries draining. If the batteries go out entirely how will they find the scooters later?
- dao- 7y agoThey would just collect them at their last known location? But yes, they actually collected the scooters already. Here's a news report from two weeks ago about Lime doing just that in Berlin: https://www.bz-berlin.de/berlin/wegen-corona-virus-e-scooter-wie-von-geisterhand-aus-berlin-verschwunden https://www.bz-berlin.de/berlin/wegen-corona-virus-e-scooter...
- eythian 7y ago> It's almost as if rewriting an essentially all-text web site to be a snazzy web app that pushes all the smarts to the client side has some drawbacks! Who could have predicted. That's not their threat model. 99.9% of people don't think to disable javascript. However at the same time search engines get the full text making the story more discoverable. I wouldn't be surprised if you'd get the full story if your referer said you came from Google too, that at least used to be a thing.
- chipotle_coyote 7y agoYou're right, of course, and the search engine full text is a good point. I'm not sure how many sites still give you a break if you come from Google, though -- I remember a fair number used to, but it seems the industry has gotten a lot less generous in that regard.
- toss1 7y agoAnyone know if they'll be selling the scooters, or breaking them down and selling the batteries? Are the batteries good for performance items, or just mediocre energy/power density so maybe good for portable power packs?
- chipotle_coyote 7y agoI suspect they're going to see if they can wait this out and survive. If people start coming back to metro areas in two or three months, Lime can probably return -- I don't know what their runway is, but I presume their operating costs basically become entirely storage rental.)
- cntlzw 7y agoCan we please stop posting paywall articles?
- techsupporter 7y agoAt the risk of coming across as insensitive, there's an easy way around paywalled articles: Pay to read the content. People need to be paid for their labors under the system we currently have, so either pay up or don't click.
- gerland 7y agoHere is a puzzle for today - should we post links to articles that have significant content, but are behind a paywall? Should we post all links behind paywalls? Should we just say - it's ok, you can steal it by disabling JS? The slider has many positions here. I looked in faq, but could not find anything about it.
- mikekchar 7y agoPersonally I don't like links behind paywalls. I also respect the desire of the publisher to have a paywall, so I don't read the articles even if I can find away around the paywall. But, I can't really see a downside to posting the links. Either they will be voted up and I won't read it, or it won't be voted up and I won't read it. But if it's voted up, I guess large numbers of people want to read it. The world doesn't have to revolve around me. I think that the best thing people can do if they see an interesting topic posted is to try to find an equivalent non-paywall article and submit it. Frequently I've seen paywalled articles replaced by non-paywall articles, so I don't think there is really a problem whatever you do.
- randomsearch 7y agoWorth adding that anyone with access to a university account should check if they can’t log in to the economist via their library service, and users of local libraries can often access magazines on tablet for free via digital lending.
- 7y ago
- grey-area 7y agoWhat a wonderful headline; I almost don't need to read the story. The economist has always been very clever with their copywriting.
- kristjankalm 7y agoalso -- this markes the absolute lowpoint in the play and things start slowly but definitely improving from that point on. although Antigonus does end up eaten by the bear.
- onion2k 7y agoalthough Antigonus does end up eaten by the bear. Spoilers!
- Amorymeltzer 7y agoIt's derived from one of Shakespeare's less popular plays, Winter's Tale, which contains the amusing stage direction "Exit, pursued by a bear."[1] (Apologies if you knew this, sincerity via text is hard) Their actual headline/url seems to be "Technology startups are headed for a fall," which is less fun. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winter%27s_Tale#The_Bear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winter%27s_Tale#The_Bear
- taneq 7y agoAs one of today's lucky 10,000, thanks for posting this. :)
- ornornor 7y agohttps://outline.com/DavUGk https://outline.com/DavUGk
- ZephyrOhm 7y agoMuch gratitude for making me aware of Outline.com Will use this often
- ornornor 7y agoGlad to know! Not sure how long it’s going to keep working though because I think all the staff was laid off recently.
- aspenmayer 7y agoThe site that had recent layoffs is The Outline, not this one. I got them mixed up myself at first. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22769301 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22769301
- PenguinCoder 7y agoWasn't that a different company? 'The outline' vs 'outline.com' ?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- onetimemanytime 7y agolosing money since day one, overvalued, on life support from investors...so Covid is killing those that would have died anyway, just in a week's time.
- Apocryphon 7y agoThe article carefully points out VC funding receding even before the pandemic, which is simply accelerating what was already trending. Reminiscent of how 9/11 and its aftershocks sped up the dot-com bubble popping, which had already been in motion. The examples of "fake tech", startups assuming easy entry into markets due to mass adoption of internet computing (via smartphones) and then running into fundamental problems with their business models, and the valuations based on creative accounting also sound familiar. This really is the dot-com bubble 2.0, isn't it.
- K0SM0S 7y agoWhat little I know of history has indeed convinced me that major ordeals are quite often the logical conclusion of small or past things unaddressed, gone out of proportion. "Bubbles" are such a thing. Real "black swans" are incredibly rare; and this (CODID-19 pandemic) isn't one. Indeed, the current dotcom situation is a bubble, and it was long due. Meanwhile, let's hope investors become better at identifying real value, real innovation, real game changers. It's often the boring stuff.
- sanedigital 7y agoYou don’t think having almost every major metropolitan area in the world under some degree of reduced economic activity for 1-3 months qualifies as a Black Swan event? What does, then?
- mettamage 7y agoIs it a Black Swann? This event was in the possibility space of epidimiologists. I don't have a source unfortunately, but it's findable.
- jariel 7y agoThat it was in the realm of possibility doesn't make it not a 'black swan'. Black swans by definition are possible. COVID-19 is unequivocally a Black Swan. Hopefully, we get a CDC 'mini Army' like Korea/Taiwan have so this doesn't happen again.
- guiriduro 7y agoUnicorns are just symptomatic of the decadence of late capitalism. Companies that can only exist because of an overabundance of greater fools who create a short-term "success" from purely trading the inflated capital of a popular but failing startup - totally divorced from its actual business. The enormous prevalence of fraud and reward for failure, of front-runners, bent sell-side analysts, the wretched hive of scum and villany that is Wall St. A better world is possible.
- itronitron 7y agoNow would be a good time for every business to take an inventory of all the software services they use and define their contingency plan for each one.
- code4tee 7y agoCoronavirus is just accelerating the market correction in startups that was already underway. In the end it may actually do some good to just pull the bandaid off fast. This is just the next wave in the cycle and those of us that have been around a few years know what to expect. Those that haven’t been though this before or are in denial will learn the hard way. Nobody cares about your pumped up valuation anymore. If anything pumped up valuations only hurt you in times like these. Options become worthless and early investors don’t want to take a hit at the benefit of others that come in on a severe (down 50+%) down round. What people do care about is how much cash you have and what your burn rate is. Cash is king. Getting new cash will mean making it with old fashioned revenue and profit. If you can’t do that your days are likely numbered.
- charwalker 7y agoRight now is an excellent time for fully online services to make their mark like a few products I've seen promoted on this forum (specifically the IPTV centralization site in the last month or two). I think once we get through the pandemic and begin returning to normal life we may, at least short term, see companies drop the whole develop product, get VC buy in and cash to burn, then explode staff count and product depth without the user base or revenue streams to maintain them. Companies will be more conservative short term and consider their liquidity and ability to reshuffle and adapt vs a titan of their segment buying up all the smart engineers. Some may still go for that (true unicorns, perhaps?). Maybe I'm being optimistic.
- smoyer 7y agoThe title used for this HN submission isn't the title chosen by The Economist - but it's so much better! (And really sums up the article's content in a terse manner)
- dang 7y agoWell, it was one of their titles. Actually the submitter posted "Exit unicorns, pursued by bears - Technology startups are headed for a fall", which was perfectly legitimate. But the first part is so good, we truncated to that.