4 ms·

Their profit is your opportunity then: open a competing company, pay people better while still making a decent profit and enjoy! Most of the current crop of co

by nickpp 4y ago

Their profit is your opportunity then: open a competing company, pay people better while still making a decent profit and enjoy! Most of the current crop of companies being seen as "unbeatable monopolies" did not exist a quarter centuries ago or they were small startups people did not give a chance. But they persisted and won. It can be done again. It is done every day, but just not by people saying "it can't be done".

dontlaugh 4y ago
With what capital? Those that own the monopolies already have most of it.
- nickpp 4y ago
  Lots of VCs willing to give you money to try, if you have an idea. This very forum belongs to one of them.
  - jacooper 4y ago
    VCs won't pay you to give better wages thats for sure.
    - nickpp 4y ago
      Have you tried? VCs beg you to spend the money they give you as long as that increases your chances of success. That is how IT workers got to enjoy the tremendous salaries and benefits we currently have.
mschuster91 4y ago
The problem is: you can't compete with the scale of these mega-corporations unless you have something like a sovereign wealth fund backing you. It is simply unviable to try and open up an alternative to Amazon or Walmart - network effects, exclusivity deals, credit history, officials letting it slide to pay your workers pittances because they don't want to battle with the lawyers a billion dollar company can put up against you... and especially, if you do try it, then the mega corporations can and will price-dump you out of business. Subsidising losses for one location for a year or two is nothing for Wal-Mart, especially not if every other store around them is closed afterwards and you are the only player left. Oh, and not to mention that while $VENDOR is willing to give Wal-Mart a special deal for, say, a bottle of soda for 20 cents in exchange for Wal-Mart placing an order for a million bottles, they will not give that same price to your small corner store. You cannot compete with that without going into loss leader territory, which is highly dangerous.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  Thank god for SoftBank, funding competition at scale and making the world a better place!
- refurb 4y ago
  The problem is: you can't compete with the scale of these mega-corporations unless you have something like a sovereign wealth fund backing you. I mean, clearly that’s not true or else we’d live in a world where old companies don’t die and no new companies come about.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    Just take supermarkets as an example. In Germany, 3/4 of the market has been taken by the four largest chains [1], which poses an immense competition problem for vendors like farms, or for small corner stores which have vanished in large parts of the country because they can't compete with the big-box store 20km away. [1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/4916/umfrage/marktanteile-der-5-groessten-lebensmitteleinzelhaendler/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/4916/umfrage/...
    - refurb 4y ago
      How much of that is just consumer choice? Of course you can’t compete against large grocery stores if you charge a higher price but offer nothing of higher value.
- nickpp 4y ago
  > you can't compete Have you ever tried? You can always compete - your imagination is the only limit. Innovate your way against established players for fun and success.
kdmccormick 4y ago
That level of profit oppptunity doesn't occur until the company is massive. Small business owners, in contrast, mostly run on tight margins and have to live with a high likelihood of their business failing. Effectively, you're asking us to solve the income gap by becoming billionaires ourselves. Can you see the irony in that?
- nickpp 4y ago
  Jeff Bezos managed to. I wish more people would try, instead of saying "can't be done". Of course very few would succeed or become billionaires but in the process they will create jobs and companies and tremendous value for a society that needs that much more than it needs the current wailing and gnashing of teeth against the "evil billionaires" that tried and succeeded.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    Just look at how long it took Amazon to get as big as it did - and Amazon didn't have much competition in its first few years ffs, they were the pioneers of e-commerce. The survivors from the first dot-com boom are so entrenched by now they are literally impossible to ever unseat unless government regulation intervenes - either in the form of marketplace regulation, anti-trust action or, like the EU is trying to break PayPal, forcing banks to offer fast payments.
    - BlueTemplar 4y ago
      You mean "how fast" ? GAF(AM)s didn't even exist a quarter of a century ago ! P.S.: What makes you think Amazon had no competition ? Were there no other booksellers, or generalist stores selling books ?
      - mschuster91 4y ago
        > GAF(AM)s didn't even exist a quarter of a century ago ! Yes, and look how entrenched they have become. Search engines, for example, are dominated by Google holding 80%+ for well over a decade. Even Bing, with Microsoft's deep cash coffers, can't get above 9% [1]. Facebook just went ahead and bought the biggest threats (Whatsapp, Instagram) or copied the features of competitors to destroy them (Snapchat). The only threat in the social media marketplace comes from TikTok, who are backed by the Chinese government. Twitter is tiny and Musk is driving it to the ground. Amazon, while "only" at 38% market share in e-commerce, still leaves everyone else including Wal-Mart in the dust [2]. Microsoft utterly dominates the PC and laptop market [3] as well as the office suite market [4]. Even with these multi-billion companies fighting against each other, they can't manage to land any kind of significant blows - so how should a small startup stand a chance? > P.S.: What makes you think Amazon had no competition ? Were there no other booksellers, or generalist stores selling books ? Amazon had no competition online, mostly because the competition was asleep at the wheel. And by the time the competition woke up, it was too late - and now "classic" book stores are dying out left and right, not to mention other kinds of specialized stores. Here in Munich, all the small electronics specialty stores closed down, even famous chain Conrad closed down because they couldn't compete any more. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/216573/worldwide-market-share-of-search-engines/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/216573/worldwide-market-... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/274255/market-share-of-the-leading-retailers-in-us-e-commerce/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/274255/market-share-of-t... [3] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide [4] https://blogs.gartner.com/craig-roth/2022/08/02/market-share-for-office-productivity-published/ https://blogs.gartner.com/craig-roth/2022/08/02/market-share...

by nickpp 4y ago

dontlaugh 4y ago

With what capital? Those that own the monopolies already have most of it.

nickpp 4y ago
Lots of VCs willing to give you money to try, if you have an idea. This very forum belongs to one of them.
- jacooper 4y ago
  VCs won't pay you to give better wages thats for sure.
  - nickpp 4y ago
    Have you tried? VCs beg you to spend the money they give you as long as that increases your chances of success. That is how IT workers got to enjoy the tremendous salaries and benefits we currently have.

mschuster91 4y ago

The problem is: you can't compete with the scale of these mega-corporations unless you have something like a sovereign wealth fund backing you. It is simply unviable to try and open up an alternative to Amazon or Walmart - network effects, exclusivity deals, credit history, officials letting it slide to pay your workers pittances because they don't want to battle with the lawyers a billion dollar company can put up against you... and especially, if you do try it, then the mega corporations can and will price-dump you out of business. Subsidising losses for one location for a year or two is nothing for Wal-Mart, especially not if every other store around them is closed afterwards and you are the only player left. Oh, and not to mention that while $VENDOR is willing to give Wal-Mart a special deal for, say, a bottle of soda for 20 cents in exchange for Wal-Mart placing an order for a million bottles, they will not give that same price to your small corner store. You cannot compete with that without going into loss leader territory, which is highly dangerous.

ethbr0 4y ago
Thank god for SoftBank, funding competition at scale and making the world a better place!
refurb 4y ago
The problem is: you can't compete with the scale of these mega-corporations unless you have something like a sovereign wealth fund backing you. I mean, clearly that’s not true or else we’d live in a world where old companies don’t die and no new companies come about.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  Just take supermarkets as an example. In Germany, 3/4 of the market has been taken by the four largest chains [1], which poses an immense competition problem for vendors like farms, or for small corner stores which have vanished in large parts of the country because they can't compete with the big-box store 20km away. [1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/4916/umfrage/marktanteile-der-5-groessten-lebensmitteleinzelhaendler/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/4916/umfrage/...
  - refurb 4y ago
    How much of that is just consumer choice? Of course you can’t compete against large grocery stores if you charge a higher price but offer nothing of higher value.
nickpp 4y ago
> you can't compete Have you ever tried? You can always compete - your imagination is the only limit. Innovate your way against established players for fun and success.

kdmccormick 4y ago

That level of profit oppptunity doesn't occur until the company is massive. Small business owners, in contrast, mostly run on tight margins and have to live with a high likelihood of their business failing. Effectively, you're asking us to solve the income gap by becoming billionaires ourselves. Can you see the irony in that?

nickpp 4y ago
Jeff Bezos managed to. I wish more people would try, instead of saying "can't be done". Of course very few would succeed or become billionaires but in the process they will create jobs and companies and tremendous value for a society that needs that much more than it needs the current wailing and gnashing of teeth against the "evil billionaires" that tried and succeeded.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  Just look at how long it took Amazon to get as big as it did - and Amazon didn't have much competition in its first few years ffs, they were the pioneers of e-commerce. The survivors from the first dot-com boom are so entrenched by now they are literally impossible to ever unseat unless government regulation intervenes - either in the form of marketplace regulation, anti-trust action or, like the EU is trying to break PayPal, forcing banks to offer fast payments.
  - BlueTemplar 4y ago
    You mean "how fast" ? GAF(AM)s didn't even exist a quarter of a century ago ! P.S.: What makes you think Amazon had no competition ? Were there no other booksellers, or generalist stores selling books ?
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      > GAF(AM)s didn't even exist a quarter of a century ago ! Yes, and look how entrenched they have become. Search engines, for example, are dominated by Google holding 80%+ for well over a decade. Even Bing, with Microsoft's deep cash coffers, can't get above 9% [1]. Facebook just went ahead and bought the biggest threats (Whatsapp, Instagram) or copied the features of competitors to destroy them (Snapchat). The only threat in the social media marketplace comes from TikTok, who are backed by the Chinese government. Twitter is tiny and Musk is driving it to the ground. Amazon, while "only" at 38% market share in e-commerce, still leaves everyone else including Wal-Mart in the dust [2]. Microsoft utterly dominates the PC and laptop market [3] as well as the office suite market [4]. Even with these multi-billion companies fighting against each other, they can't manage to land any kind of significant blows - so how should a small startup stand a chance? > P.S.: What makes you think Amazon had no competition ? Were there no other booksellers, or generalist stores selling books ? Amazon had no competition online, mostly because the competition was asleep at the wheel. And by the time the competition woke up, it was too late - and now "classic" book stores are dying out left and right, not to mention other kinds of specialized stores. Here in Munich, all the small electronics specialty stores closed down, even famous chain Conrad closed down because they couldn't compete any more. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/216573/worldwide-market-share-of-search-engines/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/216573/worldwide-market-... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/274255/market-share-of-the-leading-retailers-in-us-e-commerce/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/274255/market-share-of-t... [3] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide [4] https://blogs.gartner.com/craig-roth/2022/08/02/market-share-for-office-productivity-published/ https://blogs.gartner.com/craig-roth/2022/08/02/market-share...