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All of these companies are too big to fail at this point. They all have at least a decade of reserves to power through anything that gets thrown their way. How

All of these companies are too big to fail at this point. They all have at least a decade of reserves to power through anything that gets thrown their way. However, I do predict that they will change in significant ways in the next decade. * Apple is one Supreme Court ruling away from ending their App Store monopoly that could disrupt the entire world, since it would also affect all other digital marketplaces. * Amazon is about to enter a decade of unionization all over the world. * Google and Facebook both lost a key ability to micro-target on their ad platforms so they are both reinventing themselves to drive revenue from other sources, hardware being the biggest moats they can invest in. * Netflix has some of the worlds brightest minds in data science and they've built up a war-chest of understanding viewing habits. They've also gobbled up a lot of key Hollywood players in the last few years, so I expect some huge cultural changes ahead as these creatives start to take more leadership roles in the company.

twox2 5y ago
As long as Google has search ads, they have granular targeting at their disposal.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  Google Search is beset from all sides right now. Their search results are terrible and people are looking for alternatives. They’re definitely at or past the peak of that product lifecycle.
monkeybutton 5y ago
Netflix is facing the rise of competing streaming platforms. They're forced into creating their own content because other producers would rather release content on their own platforms and keep all the streaming revenue, rather than license it to Netflix. Streaming video on demand isn't a technical moat that is stopping anyone.
- cam0 5y ago
  True, but Netflix has gotten really good at this over the past 10 years. They create/fund some great content (and a lot of mediocre/bad content) - kind of similar to a VC fund now that I'm writing this out. They're an integral component of the entertainment industry now.
  - hobs 5y ago
    And they've been actively harming that idea by then canceling pretty much everything by the third season.
    - posnet 5y ago
      I keep hearing this from people, so I must be in the minority. But I actually like the fact that they do limited run or self contained shows. Not only does it mean that the show doesn't drag on for 10 seasons slowly reducing in quality until it's axed due to waning viewership. But I've found their limited series runs to be more engaging since the writers and director are able to tell a self contained and complete story since they know the duration of the series and can pace out the story from start to end. Also on a personal note, seeing a show has more than 5 seasons just feels like an exhausting time commitment to me at this point.
      - CrazyStat 5y ago
        I'm with you. If a show ends after two solid seasons I might wish there was more, but I'd rather that than watch it descend into an additional six seasons of mediocrity as so often happens.
      - alisonkisk 5y ago
      - ghaff 5y ago
        I've always said that I have a 5 season rule--especially with network-length 20 episode seasons. Hit somewhere in that vicinity and I'm tired of the setting, style, and characters. There are a number of series who got to the 5, 6, 7 season point and even though they didn't necessarily "jump the shark" I just got less and less interested in them and eventually stopped watching. I actually really like the fact that streaming helps allow for limited runs with episodes of the length that they want to be though one always hopes that a series ends at a natural point.
tester756 5y ago
>* Netflix has some of the worlds brightest minds in data science Which of Google, Facebook, Microsoft doesn't?
- bfung 5y ago
  And even within that group, Deepmind is in a class of it’s own. TSLA FSD engineers also. Everyone else are just making fancy spreadsheets.
jrsj 5y ago
Google to me seems to be the one with the worst execution at the moment. For all of their spend in various areas when is the last time they’ve had a win? Their core business is still strong but they seem to have lost their ability to innovate. That alone makes their decline seem inevitable to me even without considering external forces
- rietta 5y ago
  I know someone who just lost access to their Facebook account, and more because resetting their Google password lead to account lockout, and their phone number too, and that means everything that used that email and phone number as well. A cautionary tale and a terrifying reality to depend on a place famous for no human help available.
- RandomThrow321 5y ago
  You can't think of any times they've had a win? They saw the largest growth of any FAANG in the past year. What about cloud and devices (pixel, nest, stadia, Chromecast, etc.)? They made 22 billion just on "other" bets in 2020. With some of their big bets in custom SoCs, waymo, verily, and all of the research that comes out of it (especially in ML) are certainly interesting, I don't think any other companies are innovating at that level. Whether or not they will profit is another matter, of course.
  - jrsj 5y ago
    For starters just looking at growth in the past year is very favorable for them, but look at the past 5 and they’re the weakest aside from Facebook and by a relatively small margin. Almost all of their growth has been post-COVID, so it’s hard to say whether that trend will hold. Personally I expect them to return to the slower growth they had pre-pandemic as to me it doesn’t seem like anything core to their business has changed or is going to change within the decade. Pixel has always lived in the shadow of Samsung and probably always will. Android hardware profit margins are slim. Chromebooks are doing well in education at the moment but they can’t break out of the low end of the market and each of their attempts to do so have failed. Devices overall are a mixed bag in my opinion. Stadia isn’t very good, costs too much, has a mediocre game library, and given the massive development cost definitely hasn’t paid off and probably never will. Nest is a business they acquired that’s continued to grow. This is definitely a win, but it’s a small one, and it definitely doesn’t pay for all the unsuccessful products they’ve built. Custom SoCs are potentially promising, but it’s a specific niche and others are doing the same so that’s kind of a “wait and see” for me. Their paid services don’t seem popular at all with the exception of gsuite & YouTube premium (which people mainly buy to get around annoyances like not being able to listen to audio from a video with your phone locked or switch apps on mobile while leaving a video running) I expect a large chunk of that “other” revenue you mentioned is also Google Cloud which despite how hard they’ve tried is far behind it’s competitors and hasn’t seen nearly the growth that Azure in particular has had.
b9a2cab5 5y ago
Netflix is already on the way down. They infused all of their new shows with wokeness. Every new show feels like woke concepts are shoehorned in without regard for their impact on the story that's told. Look at the Witcher for an example. Or if you want to see this kind of shift happening over the course of a show, look at Madam Secretary. Season 1 didn't feature any of this crap and showed a strong woman main character that wasn't shoehorned in, by the last season everything was about "hurr durr let's ban guns and white men suck". I'm not even white and I can notice the excellent storylines being ruined. It's like the writers don't know how to write a story with woke concepts that's actually strong so instead they shove it into every successful show until the show isn't successful anymore. HBO and Disney are going to eat their lunch at this rate with more compelling content.
- nr2x 5y ago
  Yes, the walkout of trans employees was definitely because the CEO is too woke.
- RussianCow 5y ago
  I don't totally agree that this is a problem, but to be fair, every network is doing this. Even previously silly and light-hearted TV shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine have become noticeably heavier as they try to shed light on real-world social issues. There's nothing specific to Netflix here.
  - jrsj 5y ago
    If it were done well it would be one thing but it’s typically just thinly veiled (DNC) propaganda. Not much to be said on always climbing record fentanyl overdoses, class issues, etc though. If they were actually talking about anything of value to the vast majority of working people instead of rhetoric that’s specifically designed to keep them divided and afraid of each other I wouldn’t complain.
    - KerrAvon 5y ago
      You want a comedy show to cover fentanyl overdoses? By DNC, do you mean the Democratic National Committee? Have you considered that your worldview may be heavily biased by right-wing propaganda?
jollybean 5y ago
TBTF is a term usually applying to companies like banks and Beoing, that have to be rescued due to some kind of economic importance. These companies will not fail, but could face existential headwinds that no amount of money will 'fix'. ... "Netflix has some of the worlds brightest minds in data science" Their data science is a 3rd tier issue. #1 is their incumbency, #2 is the content they produce. -> Netflix 'problem' is increasing competition from HBO, Disney and others. ... "Apple is one Supreme Court ruling away from ending their App Store monopoly that could disrupt the entire world" No, their App Store will do just fine. They will reduce their 30% cut to something lower and companies will stay there because of the distribution opportunity: being in App Store will mean considerably more downloads. -> Apples 'problem' is that their iPhone is slowly becoming a commodity - there's only so many ways to 'improve' upon it and those margins will probably come down. ... "Google and Facebook both lost a key ability to micro-target on their ad platforms" No, they have not, they have enough data. -> Facebook's problem is that FB usage is going down, Insta is a bit stagnating and they have little to replace it with. -> Google's problem is that they have no obvious new products on the horizon to grow and that it's possible DDG and others may actually start to eat away at them (probably not, but possible). ... "Amazon is about to enter a decade of unionization all over the world." Probably not so much, and, rules are entirely different around the world. Amazon's problem is that it's never been profitable and there's only so many ways to make that business work. As fast delivery and one-click purchase work out in regular retail, AMZN advantage is limited. AWS however, the profit base doesn't show any signs of slowing down.
ghaff 5y ago
I see very little evidence that Netflix' data science has been a unique differentiator. For what they've developed, they have some hits and quite a few duds. Their licensed catalog is not exceptional--and even less exceptional when it comes to film. They'll likely mostly turn into another studio with a streaming platform.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  The purpose of this poll eludes me due to including Netflix and excluding Microsoft.
  - Wojtkie 5y ago
    FAANG == Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google. It's an acronym specifically for those companies, which is why Microsoft was excluded.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Yes. But the point is that a term coined by a TV stock personality years ago has pretty much zero relevance for looking at what the arc is going to be for what are seen as leading tech companies (through a Silicon Valley lens).
      - klipt 5y ago
        If you think that's outdated, wait til you hear there are still people investing in "Dow Jones" index funds or aiming for "Ivy League" schools!
  - akimball 5y ago
    Not a FAANG
  - Jorengarenar 5y ago
    Exactly, FAANG is a thing of the past, now the MAMAA is the Big Five (And TBH, it had been a surprise to be FANG, not FAMG to begin with)
devmunchies 5y ago
> Apple is one Supreme Court ruling away from ending their App Store monopoly However, if the app store were to open up, it could create a more vibrant ecosystem underneath and even create even more network effects within ios. Less direct money for apple but more vibrant developer economy.
- jonwinstanley 5y ago
  "Monopoly" is an interesting term in this situation. Obviously they are the sole provider of the iOS platform access, but iOS itself is not the largest smartphone platform.
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-i-phone-ownership-among-teens-holds-near-record-high-piper-sandler-154042364.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-i-phone-ownership-among... iPhone usage is approaching 90% for the next generation in the us, so it will be ripe for regulation.
  - kaba0 5y ago
    Well, for someone owning an apple product, the App Store is a monopoly, without an easy way to change that. Especially where nowadays owning a phone is almost a must and you only have 2 choices.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
irrational 5y ago
Netflix only has about 200 million subscribers. That is astonishingly small (IMHO). Though, I'm not a subscriber, so it probably shouldn't surprise me, but it still does.
- TrackerFF 5y ago
  I don't know, that's about 2.5% of the worlds population. All paid subscribers. Haven't checked out their financials, but are they making money yet?
  - BbzzbB 5y ago
    Yet, in the US, they make less per paid subscriber than Facebook does per free user. There's also 3 to 4 times the amount of said free users as there are of those paid users. Netflix's first free-cash-flow positive year was 2020. A measly $2B, less than 10% of Facebook's (the least cash flowing FAAMG). Netflix is a big company, but not in the same league as FAAMG.
  - skylanh 5y ago
    https://ir.netflix.net/financials/sec-filings/sec-filings-details/default.aspx?FilingId=14649020 https://ir.netflix.net/financials/sec-filings/sec-filings-de... Consolidated statement of net income for each year (page 22 of the PDF): 2020: ~$2.7b on 200m members 2019: ~$1.8b on 167m members 2018: ~$1.2b on 139m members 2017: ~$0.5b on 110m members 2016: ~$0.2b on 89m members
- epolanski 5y ago
  Small? I can't think many subscription services with such numbers.
drexlspivey 5y ago
All the data science in the world can’t make up for the shitty Netflix content
- FridgeSeal 5y ago
  Yep, they’re a “content producer” but maybe 1 in 20 shows or movies they put our OS actually compelling. They have certain titles they do well with (The Witcher comes to mind) but for everything else they have the well-established Netflix-Curse of cancelling shows instead of finishing them, so that they can crow about having a new show.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > the well-established Netflix-Curse of cancelling shows Every outlet cancels underperforming shows. Netflix fires a lot of more against the wall than just about anyone else, so they end up with a lot more that doesn't stick.
- itisit 5y ago
  Well said. So much of what they make is sheer drivel, all of it with that same sheen of value-oriented film/tv-making.
poulsbohemian 5y ago
>All of these companies are too big to fail at this point. They all have at least a decade of reserves to power through anything that gets thrown their way. Yes each of these has enough of a war chest that they could drift along for a decade + several have ownership structures where there wouldn't be market pressure to remove the C-level / board if that happened. That said... each of these has weaknesses. I think about Microsoft (the one missing from the list that rightfully belongs there...)... they came out of their lost decade a very different company. Their stock price barely moved for that entire time, though has since rebounded. It's not that hard to imagine that Netflix is just one of many streaming studios in another 5-10 years, or that people might be just as willing to turn to another search provider than Google. Facebook seems to be acutely aware that its core big blue app is seen as a baby boomer thing and that it had better do things to stay relevant to another generation. So - too big to fail? Maybe, but then again we could ask GE, GM, and Ma Bell that same question once upon a time.
- epolanski 5y ago
  It is very hard for me to imagine a world in which Google isnt the default search provider for almost the totality of people outside China or Russia. I don't think I even see my tech-aware colleagues using anything else except the rare unicorns with duckduckgo. I just can't see putting netflix and google search in the same basket.
  - poulsbohemian 5y ago
    See the comment lower down in this thread: >Google Search is beset from all sides right now. Their search results are terrible and people are looking for alternatives. They’re definitely at or past the peak of that product lifecycle. Note the discussion not just here on HN but across several channels over the past 48 hours about how bad Google Search results have become. Personally, apart from a Google Business page I don't use any other Google products and haven't in years. Their product track record is poor and their search quality has slipped. Given another 5-10 years, I don't find it difficult at all to believe that someone like Apple, if they wanted to replace Google entirely as the default search on their device, couldn't make significant headway in search market share. Sure, Netflix and Google aren't the same here - that wasn't my point. My point was simply in reference to the previous poster's comment about "too big to fail." The past 100 years of the stock market is littered with companies that were deemed unstoppable leviathans.
ch4s3 5y ago
> * Amazon is about to enter a decade of unionization all over the world. World wide is probably too strong a claim, but I think here's something to this. However, I think this would work in Amazon's favor. It would make warehousing quite a bit more expensive and would be a significant barrier to competitors. AWS provides them with deep pockets, and the have a huge advantage in logistics so I think they could eat the cost and keep moving. It would also suck a lot of air out of the anti-amazon movement, such that it is. One day delivery with high labor standards might be the pitch that catapults them to real market dominance.
- skybrian 5y ago
  I agree, especially if by "huge advantage in logistics" you include things like warehouse automation. If everyone is paying high wages then it seems like whoever automates the most will do well? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-21/inside-amazon-amzn-flagship-fulfillment-center-where-machines-run-the-show https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-21/inside-am...
  - ch4s3 5y ago
    They're quite good at logistics in general based on my limited exposure to their operation through work.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
Netflix seems to simply become the next entertainment giant, like e.g. Disney or major film studios. Apple will still have their hardware business. Amazon's AWS business is unaffected by their online shopping platform business. Facebook is facing a reputation crisis that is also causing regulators to come down on it hard, and beyond the many well-justified criticisms, many also use it as a scapegoat and a punching bag for politicians to show off. That's not a good position to be in.
Apofis 5y ago
Why is it so unbelievable that someone could disrupt any of these companies? Aside from Apple and Netflix I don't think the rest are doing a particularly good job. Apple iTunes had it's lunch eaten by Spotify (45.83B) and just look at https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/

twox2 5y ago

As long as Google has search ads, they have granular targeting at their disposal.

wayoutthere 5y ago
Google Search is beset from all sides right now. Their search results are terrible and people are looking for alternatives. They’re definitely at or past the peak of that product lifecycle.

monkeybutton 5y ago

Netflix is facing the rise of competing streaming platforms. They're forced into creating their own content because other producers would rather release content on their own platforms and keep all the streaming revenue, rather than license it to Netflix. Streaming video on demand isn't a technical moat that is stopping anyone.

cam0 5y ago
True, but Netflix has gotten really good at this over the past 10 years. They create/fund some great content (and a lot of mediocre/bad content) - kind of similar to a VC fund now that I'm writing this out. They're an integral component of the entertainment industry now.
- hobs 5y ago
  And they've been actively harming that idea by then canceling pretty much everything by the third season.
  - posnet 5y ago
    I keep hearing this from people, so I must be in the minority. But I actually like the fact that they do limited run or self contained shows. Not only does it mean that the show doesn't drag on for 10 seasons slowly reducing in quality until it's axed due to waning viewership. But I've found their limited series runs to be more engaging since the writers and director are able to tell a self contained and complete story since they know the duration of the series and can pace out the story from start to end. Also on a personal note, seeing a show has more than 5 seasons just feels like an exhausting time commitment to me at this point.
    - CrazyStat 5y ago
      I'm with you. If a show ends after two solid seasons I might wish there was more, but I'd rather that than watch it descend into an additional six seasons of mediocrity as so often happens.
    - alisonkisk 5y ago
    - ghaff 5y ago
      I've always said that I have a 5 season rule--especially with network-length 20 episode seasons. Hit somewhere in that vicinity and I'm tired of the setting, style, and characters. There are a number of series who got to the 5, 6, 7 season point and even though they didn't necessarily "jump the shark" I just got less and less interested in them and eventually stopped watching. I actually really like the fact that streaming helps allow for limited runs with episodes of the length that they want to be though one always hopes that a series ends at a natural point.

tester756 5y ago

>* Netflix has some of the worlds brightest minds in data science Which of Google, Facebook, Microsoft doesn't?

bfung 5y ago
And even within that group, Deepmind is in a class of it’s own. TSLA FSD engineers also. Everyone else are just making fancy spreadsheets.

jrsj 5y ago

Google to me seems to be the one with the worst execution at the moment. For all of their spend in various areas when is the last time they’ve had a win? Their core business is still strong but they seem to have lost their ability to innovate. That alone makes their decline seem inevitable to me even without considering external forces

rietta 5y ago
I know someone who just lost access to their Facebook account, and more because resetting their Google password lead to account lockout, and their phone number too, and that means everything that used that email and phone number as well. A cautionary tale and a terrifying reality to depend on a place famous for no human help available.
RandomThrow321 5y ago
You can't think of any times they've had a win? They saw the largest growth of any FAANG in the past year. What about cloud and devices (pixel, nest, stadia, Chromecast, etc.)? They made 22 billion just on "other" bets in 2020. With some of their big bets in custom SoCs, waymo, verily, and all of the research that comes out of it (especially in ML) are certainly interesting, I don't think any other companies are innovating at that level. Whether or not they will profit is another matter, of course.
- jrsj 5y ago
  For starters just looking at growth in the past year is very favorable for them, but look at the past 5 and they’re the weakest aside from Facebook and by a relatively small margin. Almost all of their growth has been post-COVID, so it’s hard to say whether that trend will hold. Personally I expect them to return to the slower growth they had pre-pandemic as to me it doesn’t seem like anything core to their business has changed or is going to change within the decade. Pixel has always lived in the shadow of Samsung and probably always will. Android hardware profit margins are slim. Chromebooks are doing well in education at the moment but they can’t break out of the low end of the market and each of their attempts to do so have failed. Devices overall are a mixed bag in my opinion. Stadia isn’t very good, costs too much, has a mediocre game library, and given the massive development cost definitely hasn’t paid off and probably never will. Nest is a business they acquired that’s continued to grow. This is definitely a win, but it’s a small one, and it definitely doesn’t pay for all the unsuccessful products they’ve built. Custom SoCs are potentially promising, but it’s a specific niche and others are doing the same so that’s kind of a “wait and see” for me. Their paid services don’t seem popular at all with the exception of gsuite & YouTube premium (which people mainly buy to get around annoyances like not being able to listen to audio from a video with your phone locked or switch apps on mobile while leaving a video running) I expect a large chunk of that “other” revenue you mentioned is also Google Cloud which despite how hard they’ve tried is far behind it’s competitors and hasn’t seen nearly the growth that Azure in particular has had.

b9a2cab5 5y ago

Netflix is already on the way down. They infused all of their new shows with wokeness. Every new show feels like woke concepts are shoehorned in without regard for their impact on the story that's told. Look at the Witcher for an example. Or if you want to see this kind of shift happening over the course of a show, look at Madam Secretary. Season 1 didn't feature any of this crap and showed a strong woman main character that wasn't shoehorned in, by the last season everything was about "hurr durr let's ban guns and white men suck". I'm not even white and I can notice the excellent storylines being ruined. It's like the writers don't know how to write a story with woke concepts that's actually strong so instead they shove it into every successful show until the show isn't successful anymore. HBO and Disney are going to eat their lunch at this rate with more compelling content.

nr2x 5y ago
Yes, the walkout of trans employees was definitely because the CEO is too woke.
RussianCow 5y ago
I don't totally agree that this is a problem, but to be fair, every network is doing this. Even previously silly and light-hearted TV shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine have become noticeably heavier as they try to shed light on real-world social issues. There's nothing specific to Netflix here.
- jrsj 5y ago
  If it were done well it would be one thing but it’s typically just thinly veiled (DNC) propaganda. Not much to be said on always climbing record fentanyl overdoses, class issues, etc though. If they were actually talking about anything of value to the vast majority of working people instead of rhetoric that’s specifically designed to keep them divided and afraid of each other I wouldn’t complain.
  - KerrAvon 5y ago
    You want a comedy show to cover fentanyl overdoses? By DNC, do you mean the Democratic National Committee? Have you considered that your worldview may be heavily biased by right-wing propaganda?

jollybean 5y ago

TBTF is a term usually applying to companies like banks and Beoing, that have to be rescued due to some kind of economic importance. These companies will not fail, but could face existential headwinds that no amount of money will 'fix'. ... "Netflix has some of the worlds brightest minds in data science" Their data science is a 3rd tier issue. #1 is their incumbency, #2 is the content they produce. -> Netflix 'problem' is increasing competition from HBO, Disney and others. ... "Apple is one Supreme Court ruling away from ending their App Store monopoly that could disrupt the entire world" No, their App Store will do just fine. They will reduce their 30% cut to something lower and companies will stay there because of the distribution opportunity: being in App Store will mean considerably more downloads. -> Apples 'problem' is that their iPhone is slowly becoming a commodity - there's only so many ways to 'improve' upon it and those margins will probably come down. ... "Google and Facebook both lost a key ability to micro-target on their ad platforms" No, they have not, they have enough data. -> Facebook's problem is that FB usage is going down, Insta is a bit stagnating and they have little to replace it with. -> Google's problem is that they have no obvious new products on the horizon to grow and that it's possible DDG and others may actually start to eat away at them (probably not, but possible). ... "Amazon is about to enter a decade of unionization all over the world." Probably not so much, and, rules are entirely different around the world. Amazon's problem is that it's never been profitable and there's only so many ways to make that business work. As fast delivery and one-click purchase work out in regular retail, AMZN advantage is limited. AWS however, the profit base doesn't show any signs of slowing down.

ghaff 5y ago

I see very little evidence that Netflix' data science has been a unique differentiator. For what they've developed, they have some hits and quite a few duds. Their licensed catalog is not exceptional--and even less exceptional when it comes to film. They'll likely mostly turn into another studio with a streaming platform.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
The purpose of this poll eludes me due to including Netflix and excluding Microsoft.
- Wojtkie 5y ago
  FAANG == Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google. It's an acronym specifically for those companies, which is why Microsoft was excluded.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Yes. But the point is that a term coined by a TV stock personality years ago has pretty much zero relevance for looking at what the arc is going to be for what are seen as leading tech companies (through a Silicon Valley lens).
    - klipt 5y ago
      If you think that's outdated, wait til you hear there are still people investing in "Dow Jones" index funds or aiming for "Ivy League" schools!
- akimball 5y ago
  Not a FAANG
- Jorengarenar 5y ago
  Exactly, FAANG is a thing of the past, now the MAMAA is the Big Five (And TBH, it had been a surprise to be FANG, not FAMG to begin with)

devmunchies 5y ago

> Apple is one Supreme Court ruling away from ending their App Store monopoly However, if the app store were to open up, it could create a more vibrant ecosystem underneath and even create even more network effects within ios. Less direct money for apple but more vibrant developer economy.

jonwinstanley 5y ago
"Monopoly" is an interesting term in this situation. Obviously they are the sole provider of the iOS platform access, but iOS itself is not the largest smartphone platform.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-i-phone-ownership-among-teens-holds-near-record-high-piper-sandler-154042364.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-i-phone-ownership-among... iPhone usage is approaching 90% for the next generation in the us, so it will be ripe for regulation.
- kaba0 5y ago
  Well, for someone owning an apple product, the App Store is a monopoly, without an easy way to change that. Especially where nowadays owning a phone is almost a must and you only have 2 choices.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

irrational 5y ago

Netflix only has about 200 million subscribers. That is astonishingly small (IMHO). Though, I'm not a subscriber, so it probably shouldn't surprise me, but it still does.

TrackerFF 5y ago
I don't know, that's about 2.5% of the worlds population. All paid subscribers. Haven't checked out their financials, but are they making money yet?
- BbzzbB 5y ago
  Yet, in the US, they make less per paid subscriber than Facebook does per free user. There's also 3 to 4 times the amount of said free users as there are of those paid users. Netflix's first free-cash-flow positive year was 2020. A measly $2B, less than 10% of Facebook's (the least cash flowing FAAMG). Netflix is a big company, but not in the same league as FAAMG.
- skylanh 5y ago
  https://ir.netflix.net/financials/sec-filings/sec-filings-details/default.aspx?FilingId=14649020 https://ir.netflix.net/financials/sec-filings/sec-filings-de... Consolidated statement of net income for each year (page 22 of the PDF): 2020: ~$2.7b on 200m members 2019: ~$1.8b on 167m members 2018: ~$1.2b on 139m members 2017: ~$0.5b on 110m members 2016: ~$0.2b on 89m members
epolanski 5y ago
Small? I can't think many subscription services with such numbers.

drexlspivey 5y ago

All the data science in the world can’t make up for the shitty Netflix content

FridgeSeal 5y ago
Yep, they’re a “content producer” but maybe 1 in 20 shows or movies they put our OS actually compelling. They have certain titles they do well with (The Witcher comes to mind) but for everything else they have the well-established Netflix-Curse of cancelling shows instead of finishing them, so that they can crow about having a new show.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > the well-established Netflix-Curse of cancelling shows Every outlet cancels underperforming shows. Netflix fires a lot of more against the wall than just about anyone else, so they end up with a lot more that doesn't stick.
itisit 5y ago
Well said. So much of what they make is sheer drivel, all of it with that same sheen of value-oriented film/tv-making.

poulsbohemian 5y ago

>All of these companies are too big to fail at this point. They all have at least a decade of reserves to power through anything that gets thrown their way. Yes each of these has enough of a war chest that they could drift along for a decade + several have ownership structures where there wouldn't be market pressure to remove the C-level / board if that happened. That said... each of these has weaknesses. I think about Microsoft (the one missing from the list that rightfully belongs there...)... they came out of their lost decade a very different company. Their stock price barely moved for that entire time, though has since rebounded. It's not that hard to imagine that Netflix is just one of many streaming studios in another 5-10 years, or that people might be just as willing to turn to another search provider than Google. Facebook seems to be acutely aware that its core big blue app is seen as a baby boomer thing and that it had better do things to stay relevant to another generation. So - too big to fail? Maybe, but then again we could ask GE, GM, and Ma Bell that same question once upon a time.

epolanski 5y ago
It is very hard for me to imagine a world in which Google isnt the default search provider for almost the totality of people outside China or Russia. I don't think I even see my tech-aware colleagues using anything else except the rare unicorns with duckduckgo. I just can't see putting netflix and google search in the same basket.
- poulsbohemian 5y ago
  See the comment lower down in this thread: >Google Search is beset from all sides right now. Their search results are terrible and people are looking for alternatives. They’re definitely at or past the peak of that product lifecycle. Note the discussion not just here on HN but across several channels over the past 48 hours about how bad Google Search results have become. Personally, apart from a Google Business page I don't use any other Google products and haven't in years. Their product track record is poor and their search quality has slipped. Given another 5-10 years, I don't find it difficult at all to believe that someone like Apple, if they wanted to replace Google entirely as the default search on their device, couldn't make significant headway in search market share. Sure, Netflix and Google aren't the same here - that wasn't my point. My point was simply in reference to the previous poster's comment about "too big to fail." The past 100 years of the stock market is littered with companies that were deemed unstoppable leviathans.

ch4s3 5y ago

> * Amazon is about to enter a decade of unionization all over the world. World wide is probably too strong a claim, but I think here's something to this. However, I think this would work in Amazon's favor. It would make warehousing quite a bit more expensive and would be a significant barrier to competitors. AWS provides them with deep pockets, and the have a huge advantage in logistics so I think they could eat the cost and keep moving. It would also suck a lot of air out of the anti-amazon movement, such that it is. One day delivery with high labor standards might be the pitch that catapults them to real market dominance.

skybrian 5y ago
I agree, especially if by "huge advantage in logistics" you include things like warehouse automation. If everyone is paying high wages then it seems like whoever automates the most will do well? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-21/inside-amazon-amzn-flagship-fulfillment-center-where-machines-run-the-show https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-21/inside-am...
- ch4s3 5y ago
  They're quite good at logistics in general based on my limited exposure to their operation through work.

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago

Netflix seems to simply become the next entertainment giant, like e.g. Disney or major film studios. Apple will still have their hardware business. Amazon's AWS business is unaffected by their online shopping platform business. Facebook is facing a reputation crisis that is also causing regulators to come down on it hard, and beyond the many well-justified criticisms, many also use it as a scapegoat and a punching bag for politicians to show off. That's not a good position to be in.

Apofis 5y ago

Why is it so unbelievable that someone could disrupt any of these companies? Aside from Apple and Netflix I don't think the rest are doing a particularly good job. Apple iTunes had it's lunch eaten by Spotify (45.83B) and just look at https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/