4 ms·

This reminds me of when everyone found out during the dot com bubble that Booking.com[1], at the time a unicorn startup, was run out of a single office with som

by zhdc1 5y ago

This reminds me of when everyone found out during the dot com bubble that Booking.com[1], at the time a unicorn startup, was run out of a single office with something like a dozen or so employees. It didn't lead to the stock market crash, but it always stuck me as the first time that the general public started to really think that the whole dot com scene was a little out of whack. Twitter has a monopoly and 3B+ in revenue. It's hard to see how this justifies a 36B+ market cap. It's in a much better position than many, many other unicorns. [1] I'm going off of a twenty two or twenty three year old memory, so I may have gotten the company wrong.

karatinversion 5y ago
...Twitter has a monopoly?
- zhdc1 5y ago
  On what they do? Absolutely. If you combine all of the different 'social media' platforms together into a single category? No.
  - mbg721 5y ago
    What is it that Twitter does exactly? It mostly seems to exist to put out short one-to-many messages that other media organizations can then cite as Zeitgeist. That may not be a monopoly, but it certainly isn't benevolent to the user, and it isn't how it was billed when it was new.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - colinmhayes 5y ago
      > What is it that Twitter does exactly? Break news and sic mobs on people. Both activities many people are extremely interested in being a part of.
  - viro 5y ago
    I want to remind you that ur definition of monopoly would make every niche business a monopoly. Social media IS a single category.
YetAnotherNick 5y ago
Just the low employee count is not a bad thing in itself. Whatsapp had I think 50 employees when it was sold for $19 billion.
yunohn 5y ago
> Booking.com[1], at the time a unicorn startup, was run out of a single office with something like a dozen or so employees. Ironically, they still have the same business model now - but with severe bloat (20k employees).
- m4rtink 5y ago
  Don't their employees handle communication with the myriad accommodation owners and tourists that often don't speak the same language? Sure, often you can just do everything using the web interface, but sometimes you need to ask questions and Booking handled that quite quickly in the past.
cbozeman 5y ago
> It didn't lead to the stock market crash, but it always stuck me as the first time that the general public started to really think that the whole dot com scene was a little out of whack. That's because the general public, and frankly even the non-general public, have never fully understood the digital computer: it's a leverage machine. It allows the exceptionally intelligent and/or insightful to leverage code to do what would have taken thousands, or even millions of workers to achieve. That's why a billion dollar photo startup can be created by three people and sold to Facebook. It looks like alchemy to the people without knowledge, because it's complex, difficult, requires a bit of luck (the right time / right place combination), and frankly, does require a certain level of intelligence that's well above average in order to fully exploit.

by zhdc1 5y ago

karatinversion 5y ago

...Twitter has a monopoly?

zhdc1 5y ago
On what they do? Absolutely. If you combine all of the different 'social media' platforms together into a single category? No.
- mbg721 5y ago
  What is it that Twitter does exactly? It mostly seems to exist to put out short one-to-many messages that other media organizations can then cite as Zeitgeist. That may not be a monopoly, but it certainly isn't benevolent to the user, and it isn't how it was billed when it was new.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    > What is it that Twitter does exactly? Break news and sic mobs on people. Both activities many people are extremely interested in being a part of.
- viro 5y ago
  I want to remind you that ur definition of monopoly would make every niche business a monopoly. Social media IS a single category.

YetAnotherNick 5y ago

Just the low employee count is not a bad thing in itself. Whatsapp had I think 50 employees when it was sold for $19 billion.

yunohn 5y ago

> Booking.com[1], at the time a unicorn startup, was run out of a single office with something like a dozen or so employees. Ironically, they still have the same business model now - but with severe bloat (20k employees).

m4rtink 5y ago
Don't their employees handle communication with the myriad accommodation owners and tourists that often don't speak the same language? Sure, often you can just do everything using the web interface, but sometimes you need to ask questions and Booking handled that quite quickly in the past.

cbozeman 5y ago

> It didn't lead to the stock market crash, but it always stuck me as the first time that the general public started to really think that the whole dot com scene was a little out of whack. That's because the general public, and frankly even the non-general public, have never fully understood the digital computer: it's a leverage machine. It allows the exceptionally intelligent and/or insightful to leverage code to do what would have taken thousands, or even millions of workers to achieve. That's why a billion dollar photo startup can be created by three people and sold to Facebook. It looks like alchemy to the people without knowledge, because it's complex, difficult, requires a bit of luck (the right time / right place combination), and frankly, does require a certain level of intelligence that's well above average in order to fully exploit.