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I wish people would stop using twitter for article/blog sized content. Maybe I'm holding it wrong, but I find retweets of threads extremely an extremely unreli

I wish people would stop using twitter for article/blog sized content. Maybe I'm holding it wrong, but I find retweets of threads extremely an extremely unreliable way to find my way back to the actual thread. This particular link works, but it's still very a very annoying form to read it. That said: Shorting these companies, that OP admits have huge R&D budgets, is a bet that they won't invent something new. Or that they will be taken over by something that does. With a 10 digit R&D budget you can afford to be second mover. In the last 20 years, has GOOG invented? Wow, yes. Question is do you think the past 2 years (or whatever) is a better predictor of next 5 years than the last 20 years was? I dunno. And saying you do (especially when shorting) is saying you know better than the market, which is not always wrong, but it does have some arrogance in it.

6a74 6y ago
I agree that Twitter is the wrong medium for essays. Not that it's a great fix, but Twitter threads can be consolidated with Thread reader, which makes them much easier to read. For example, this article: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1281630456807452677.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1281630456807452677.html
gavribirnbaum 6y ago
I think the major question is not whether they will invent something else. they are reliant on Ads and will remain so as far as I can tell. the real question is: is the ad model overvalued? I think so for the following reasons: ad blockers, users getting desensitized to ads, diminishing returns of the amount of data one needs on a user to sell. I think OP has the right conclusion but the wrong reasons. what do you think?
- knorker 6y ago
  I think the ads market risk is offset by the market potential of self-driving, cloud, AI (deepmind), and maybe other things, long term. Shorting GOOG is betting not only that ads will decrease long term, but also that the other fields won't increase. Yes, I realize even cloud has a long way to go, revenue wise, compared to ads. But on the other hands ads has a long way to fall. And public cloud (including Google's cloud) is still growing exponentially. In other words: I have no reason to think I know better than the invisible hand of the market. That's GOOG. FB I've not looked into as much.
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    >I have no reason to think I know better than the invisible hand of the market. I don't understand how anyone can talk any more about the market having mystical powers after what we've seen in the past few months. If the market was priced correctly in late February, and now that it's regained almost all it lost, how could it be priced correctly in late March at 1/3 lower? And if you swallow that, how is it that it went lower in a basically linear fashion over a month rather than instantly as whatever information was absorbed got out? This really is bugging me as an "emperor's new clothes" situation, you can argue any which way on which is the right price, but how can you believe for an instant that they are all correct, reflecting all available information at all times?

6a74 6y ago

I agree that Twitter is the wrong medium for essays. Not that it's a great fix, but Twitter threads can be consolidated with Thread reader, which makes them much easier to read. For example, this article: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1281630456807452677.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1281630456807452677.html

gavribirnbaum 6y ago

I think the major question is not whether they will invent something else. they are reliant on Ads and will remain so as far as I can tell. the real question is: is the ad model overvalued? I think so for the following reasons: ad blockers, users getting desensitized to ads, diminishing returns of the amount of data one needs on a user to sell. I think OP has the right conclusion but the wrong reasons. what do you think?

knorker 6y ago
I think the ads market risk is offset by the market potential of self-driving, cloud, AI (deepmind), and maybe other things, long term. Shorting GOOG is betting not only that ads will decrease long term, but also that the other fields won't increase. Yes, I realize even cloud has a long way to go, revenue wise, compared to ads. But on the other hands ads has a long way to fall. And public cloud (including Google's cloud) is still growing exponentially. In other words: I have no reason to think I know better than the invisible hand of the market. That's GOOG. FB I've not looked into as much.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  >I have no reason to think I know better than the invisible hand of the market. I don't understand how anyone can talk any more about the market having mystical powers after what we've seen in the past few months. If the market was priced correctly in late February, and now that it's regained almost all it lost, how could it be priced correctly in late March at 1/3 lower? And if you swallow that, how is it that it went lower in a basically linear fashion over a month rather than instantly as whatever information was absorbed got out? This really is bugging me as an "emperor's new clothes" situation, you can argue any which way on which is the right price, but how can you believe for an instant that they are all correct, reflecting all available information at all times?