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I think we’re starting to see a bit of “post pandemic” economic factors and that explains some of the shake up on Wall Street as of late. I always felt this abo

I think we’re starting to see a bit of “post pandemic” economic factors and that explains some of the shake up on Wall Street as of late. I always felt this about Peloton more than anything though, that it was not going to be able to sustain growth numbers as the pandemic when either of these came to pass: 1) ended officially 2) waned on to the point that it became "normalized" in how to handle day to day activities out Largely, I think some things that were popular in the pandemic got outsized growth through it, may fade in popularity quickly or outright be out of business as people want to resume more normal behaviors they had pre pandemic. I wonder how Zoom will fare. I think its more sticky than Peloton because everyone is transitioning to remote work for White Collar workers and I don't see that particular bit being given up quite so easily now, we shall see if thats the case over the coming months I think

scotuswroteus 5y ago
Zoom will soon follow the rest of the silicon valley companies in finding ways to invest in military technology, use lobbying power to earn big dollar government contracts, and monetize its access to biometric data. Unless it has already done that.
- Upgrayyed_U 5y ago
  Already there: https://www.zoomgov.com https://www.zoomgov.com Zoom for Government
  - ubermonkey 5y ago
    Which I'm utterly sure is in NO way more secure or less of a liability than regular Zoom. Zoom has proven itself to be completely craven about behavior and pseudo-apologies; I'm amazed they have any credibility with CIOs.
    - bladegash 5y ago
      It’s FedRAMP authorized at the moderate baseline. That requires implementation of a pretty sizable and stringent set of security controls, continuous monitoring, and more. I’d say it’s probably a bit more secure than their commercial offering, but that likely depends on your opinion of the control catalog’s requirements and compliance does not always equal secure.
      - ubermonkey 5y ago
        I am in the gov't contracting world, and let's just say I'm not impressed with the "stringency" of FedRamp controls or evaluation. Plus, as noted, Zoom has lied repeatedly about what they do, how they do it, where their data goes, etc., and every time has somehow escaped any real repercussions. They are not trustworthy, regardless of certification.
- ct0 5y ago
  As in Chinese military technology?
- jmeister 5y ago
  “The beauty of doing nothing is that you can do it perfectly. Only when you do something is it almost impossible to do it without mistakes. Therefore people who are contributing nothing to society, except their constant criticisms, can feel both intellectually and morally superior.” — Thomas Sowell
muh_gradle 5y ago
Zoom is most definitely here to stay. I am confident that remote work culture will continue to be a part of normal working culture going forward. There's too many advantages for both labor and businesses to keep remote work alive.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > Zoom is most definitely here to stay. I am confident that remote work culture will continue to be a part of normal working culture going forward. I'm with you on the second statement. I don't see the first immutably flowing from it. Zoom is dominant, but switching costs are small and their competitors are well capitalized and eagerly assaulting its fortress. Add to that their geopolitical vulnerability and their long-term dominance is far from assured.
  - dbingham 5y ago
    I'm curious what you mean by 'geopolitical vulnerability'. How are they vulnerable?
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > I'm curious what you mean by 'geopolitical vulnerability'. How are they vulnerable? Zoom's China links have put it in hot water before [1][2][3]. If tensions flared, it could find itself cut off from some combination of a large section of its customers and/or large section of its workforce. [1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/china-based-executive-us-telecommunications-company-charged-disrupting-video-meetings https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/china-based-executive-u... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/technology/zoom-tiananmen-square.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/technology/zoom-tiananmen... [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52200507 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52200507
  - muh_gradle 5y ago
    That's fair, I don't think it's a guarantee that Zoom will remain an industry leader. Google Meet and Microsoft Teams might catch up and overtake. Last I saw the numbers, Zoom still has a pretty big advantage as a brand name with 600 million DAU and being the brand name. I think the geopolitical vulnerability is fairly overblown.
cobookman 5y ago
Zoom charges a $/user/month. Companies pre-covid had video conferencing platforms. Zoom did a lot of shifting of existing spend from business on Webex & Hangouts/Meet to its platform. Even if Zoom's average usage per paid user goes down post-pandemic, it's revenue will remain constant and could still grow as new employees are hired and new companies switch over.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tkahnoski 5y ago
  The strategic threat for Zoom at this point is big players providing a more integrated offering. Microsoft being the best example. Zoom was easy for corporations to adopt quickly in the pandemic rush, but companies that already had Webex or others didn't switch. When a player offers cross-sell discounts with other products they offer and as long as the functionality is 80% as good, they will absolutely go with the cheaper vendor. Zoom needs to diversify to stay competitive five years from now, the Five9 acquisition/merger was Zooms first attempt at trying to figure this out.
devoutsalsa 5y ago
I can see the appeal. Just this morning I was walking on the treadmill watching a TV screen of sexy people doing gym stuff, and that made me want to keep watching. When the TV is showing something dumb else, I get bored of that treadmill super fast.
- stinkytaco 5y ago
  I can see the appeal, but I don't think that really saves Peloton. It's an easily replicatable feature -- you could imagine NordicTrak doing it with a different set of sexy people -- and its a feature that many of us lived without pre-pandemic by going to the gym and looking at real life sexy (and unsexy) people. Additionally, it continues to be a niche market, even among fitness enthusiasts. Tablets allow us access to whatever we want to watch. This isn't to say Peloton is bad or people will not keep using it, just that there was almost sure to be a reset as we all reset and at least partially revert.
pcurve 5y ago
Reminds me of Go Pro IPO https://g.co/finance/GPRO:NASDAQ?window=MAX https://g.co/finance/GPRO:NASDAQ?window=MAX And to a lesser degree, Fitbit, which of course was bought out. I'm guessing Peloton will follow the Go Pro IPO trajectory.
Aaronstotle 5y ago
Google Meet is so much better than Zoom & MS Teams, that being said I think Zoom has entrenched itself in plenty of businesses and people won't transition away.
- Jemaclus 5y ago
  Curious what you think makes it better than Zoom. In my experience, Zoom video quality is heads and shoulders above Meet, and the fact that Zoom supports multiple monitors, whereas Meet does not, means that Zoom pretty much wins hands-down. What are your arguments in favor of Meet? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to start an argument.
qbasic_forever 5y ago
The pandemic isn't over, FYI.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
999900000999 5y ago
Zoom doesn't have massive manufacturing overhead. Peloton forgot how easily they can be replaced. You can buy a used exercise bike, and play whatever YouTube videos you need on a mounted iPad. For a while Peloton started to position itself as a tech company, competing with FAANG when it came to total comp. I've also seen an explosion in fitness tech companies. Peloton struck gold, and should've remained a much smaller company. Instead they started expanding rapidly, and lost the plot. My heart goes out to the laid off though.
- birken 5y ago
  Every company in history could have remained smaller and more efficient. Amazon could still be an online bookstore with higher margins than they have now. It is very normal and natural for companies take risks to grow, and sometimes those risks pay off and sometimes they don't. It is very results oriented to see what happened and then say they shouldn't have tried. Peloton is also far from insolvent. I'm not saying they were mismanaged or not, but the fact that the gamble they made didn't pay off is not on its own evidence they shouldn't have tried.
  - anm89 5y ago
    I think that's the exact point the parent is making. Most companies can figure out a way to raise and grow. The point was that it was a bad idea in the specific case of Peloton.
  - lnsru 5y ago
    Wrong comparison. Peloton is manufacturer of fitness gadgets with limited market size. While Amazon is a marketplace gathering fees from sellers with virtually unlimited market size. Everything with hardware is close to death with one leg in the coffin. One mismanagement in supply chain and you are gone. Look at the poor car manufacturers right now. Maybe there is exception - one phone manufacturer that is managing supply chain very well.
    - avs733 5y ago
      > While Amazon is Not a wrong comparison at all. His point is that Amazon was a place that sold books. They took risks and grew into a marketplace for selling everything. One mismanagement of their AWS development or platformization and things could be very different. Peloton is a manufacturer of fitness gadgets AND a content provider of fitness classes. What they could grow into if they take risks is an open and interesting discussion.
speby 5y ago
Remote work was already a very long-term trend before COVID. COVID pumped steroids everywhere on that trend, thus making Zoom and others see tremendous growth. I suspect the growth will "slow" relative to the first 6 months of, say, March-September 2020, but as remote continues its long-term trend, including the after-effects of COVID's steroidal injection, the growth rate will probably wane but will still be strong cumulative growth regardless.
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
They we're attached to the spin bike fad which was already waning pre-pandemic.
papito 5y ago
If anyone tells me how to disable Zoom incoming video to save bandwidth and avoid lag, I will give you a dollar.
- ffpip 5y ago
  https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/4409500570381-Stopping-all-incoming-video-in-a-meeting-or-webinar https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/4409500570381-Stop... It's the first result for "disable Zoom incoming video".

scotuswroteus 5y ago

Zoom will soon follow the rest of the silicon valley companies in finding ways to invest in military technology, use lobbying power to earn big dollar government contracts, and monetize its access to biometric data. Unless it has already done that.

Upgrayyed_U 5y ago
Already there: https://www.zoomgov.com https://www.zoomgov.com Zoom for Government
- ubermonkey 5y ago
  Which I'm utterly sure is in NO way more secure or less of a liability than regular Zoom. Zoom has proven itself to be completely craven about behavior and pseudo-apologies; I'm amazed they have any credibility with CIOs.
  - bladegash 5y ago
    It’s FedRAMP authorized at the moderate baseline. That requires implementation of a pretty sizable and stringent set of security controls, continuous monitoring, and more. I’d say it’s probably a bit more secure than their commercial offering, but that likely depends on your opinion of the control catalog’s requirements and compliance does not always equal secure.
    - ubermonkey 5y ago
      I am in the gov't contracting world, and let's just say I'm not impressed with the "stringency" of FedRamp controls or evaluation. Plus, as noted, Zoom has lied repeatedly about what they do, how they do it, where their data goes, etc., and every time has somehow escaped any real repercussions. They are not trustworthy, regardless of certification.
ct0 5y ago
As in Chinese military technology?
jmeister 5y ago
“The beauty of doing nothing is that you can do it perfectly. Only when you do something is it almost impossible to do it without mistakes. Therefore people who are contributing nothing to society, except their constant criticisms, can feel both intellectually and morally superior.” — Thomas Sowell

muh_gradle 5y ago

Zoom is most definitely here to stay. I am confident that remote work culture will continue to be a part of normal working culture going forward. There's too many advantages for both labor and businesses to keep remote work alive.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> Zoom is most definitely here to stay. I am confident that remote work culture will continue to be a part of normal working culture going forward. I'm with you on the second statement. I don't see the first immutably flowing from it. Zoom is dominant, but switching costs are small and their competitors are well capitalized and eagerly assaulting its fortress. Add to that their geopolitical vulnerability and their long-term dominance is far from assured.
- dbingham 5y ago
  I'm curious what you mean by 'geopolitical vulnerability'. How are they vulnerable?
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > I'm curious what you mean by 'geopolitical vulnerability'. How are they vulnerable? Zoom's China links have put it in hot water before [1][2][3]. If tensions flared, it could find itself cut off from some combination of a large section of its customers and/or large section of its workforce. [1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/china-based-executive-us-telecommunications-company-charged-disrupting-video-meetings https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/china-based-executive-u... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/technology/zoom-tiananmen-square.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/technology/zoom-tiananmen... [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52200507 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52200507
- muh_gradle 5y ago
  That's fair, I don't think it's a guarantee that Zoom will remain an industry leader. Google Meet and Microsoft Teams might catch up and overtake. Last I saw the numbers, Zoom still has a pretty big advantage as a brand name with 600 million DAU and being the brand name. I think the geopolitical vulnerability is fairly overblown.

cobookman 5y ago

Zoom charges a $/user/month. Companies pre-covid had video conferencing platforms. Zoom did a lot of shifting of existing spend from business on Webex & Hangouts/Meet to its platform. Even if Zoom's average usage per paid user goes down post-pandemic, it's revenue will remain constant and could still grow as new employees are hired and new companies switch over.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tkahnoski 5y ago
The strategic threat for Zoom at this point is big players providing a more integrated offering. Microsoft being the best example. Zoom was easy for corporations to adopt quickly in the pandemic rush, but companies that already had Webex or others didn't switch. When a player offers cross-sell discounts with other products they offer and as long as the functionality is 80% as good, they will absolutely go with the cheaper vendor. Zoom needs to diversify to stay competitive five years from now, the Five9 acquisition/merger was Zooms first attempt at trying to figure this out.

devoutsalsa 5y ago

I can see the appeal. Just this morning I was walking on the treadmill watching a TV screen of sexy people doing gym stuff, and that made me want to keep watching. When the TV is showing something dumb else, I get bored of that treadmill super fast.

stinkytaco 5y ago
I can see the appeal, but I don't think that really saves Peloton. It's an easily replicatable feature -- you could imagine NordicTrak doing it with a different set of sexy people -- and its a feature that many of us lived without pre-pandemic by going to the gym and looking at real life sexy (and unsexy) people. Additionally, it continues to be a niche market, even among fitness enthusiasts. Tablets allow us access to whatever we want to watch. This isn't to say Peloton is bad or people will not keep using it, just that there was almost sure to be a reset as we all reset and at least partially revert.

pcurve 5y ago

Reminds me of Go Pro IPO https://g.co/finance/GPRO:NASDAQ?window=MAX https://g.co/finance/GPRO:NASDAQ?window=MAX And to a lesser degree, Fitbit, which of course was bought out. I'm guessing Peloton will follow the Go Pro IPO trajectory.

Aaronstotle 5y ago

Google Meet is so much better than Zoom & MS Teams, that being said I think Zoom has entrenched itself in plenty of businesses and people won't transition away.

Jemaclus 5y ago
Curious what you think makes it better than Zoom. In my experience, Zoom video quality is heads and shoulders above Meet, and the fact that Zoom supports multiple monitors, whereas Meet does not, means that Zoom pretty much wins hands-down. What are your arguments in favor of Meet? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to start an argument.

qbasic_forever 5y ago

The pandemic isn't over, FYI.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

999900000999 5y ago

Zoom doesn't have massive manufacturing overhead. Peloton forgot how easily they can be replaced. You can buy a used exercise bike, and play whatever YouTube videos you need on a mounted iPad. For a while Peloton started to position itself as a tech company, competing with FAANG when it came to total comp. I've also seen an explosion in fitness tech companies. Peloton struck gold, and should've remained a much smaller company. Instead they started expanding rapidly, and lost the plot. My heart goes out to the laid off though.

birken 5y ago
Every company in history could have remained smaller and more efficient. Amazon could still be an online bookstore with higher margins than they have now. It is very normal and natural for companies take risks to grow, and sometimes those risks pay off and sometimes they don't. It is very results oriented to see what happened and then say they shouldn't have tried. Peloton is also far from insolvent. I'm not saying they were mismanaged or not, but the fact that the gamble they made didn't pay off is not on its own evidence they shouldn't have tried.
- anm89 5y ago
  I think that's the exact point the parent is making. Most companies can figure out a way to raise and grow. The point was that it was a bad idea in the specific case of Peloton.
- lnsru 5y ago
  Wrong comparison. Peloton is manufacturer of fitness gadgets with limited market size. While Amazon is a marketplace gathering fees from sellers with virtually unlimited market size. Everything with hardware is close to death with one leg in the coffin. One mismanagement in supply chain and you are gone. Look at the poor car manufacturers right now. Maybe there is exception - one phone manufacturer that is managing supply chain very well.
  - avs733 5y ago
    > While Amazon is Not a wrong comparison at all. His point is that Amazon was a place that sold books. They took risks and grew into a marketplace for selling everything. One mismanagement of their AWS development or platformization and things could be very different. Peloton is a manufacturer of fitness gadgets AND a content provider of fitness classes. What they could grow into if they take risks is an open and interesting discussion.

speby 5y ago

Remote work was already a very long-term trend before COVID. COVID pumped steroids everywhere on that trend, thus making Zoom and others see tremendous growth. I suspect the growth will "slow" relative to the first 6 months of, say, March-September 2020, but as remote continues its long-term trend, including the after-effects of COVID's steroidal injection, the growth rate will probably wane but will still be strong cumulative growth regardless.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

They we're attached to the spin bike fad which was already waning pre-pandemic.

papito 5y ago

If anyone tells me how to disable Zoom incoming video to save bandwidth and avoid lag, I will give you a dollar.

ffpip 5y ago
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/4409500570381-Stopping-all-incoming-video-in-a-meeting-or-webinar https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/4409500570381-Stop... It's the first result for "disable Zoom incoming video".