5 ms·

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 wit

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...
      - BlueTemplar 4y ago
        Well, US companies being effectively illegal in EU since 2015 might shake things up ? For instance : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33751805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33751805
- BlueTemplar 4y ago
  These companies managed to because antitrust (and protectionism) are asleep on their job.
- qwytw 4y ago
  > more people would try What makes you think they didn't? There are hundreds of thousands (or way more) who 'failed' for every self-made billionaire.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  Jeff Bezos is not seen by most as evil, because he is rich, but because he became rich by exploiting working people and other buisnesses wherever possible. It is not possible for everyone to successfully exploit others. You need some victims, too.
  - nickpp 4y ago
    Jeff Bezor is seen as "evil" only by leftists who would love to steal people the freedom to choose where to work and how.
    - vaidhy 4y ago
      If you cannot see the asymmetry of power between an individual warehouse worker and Amazon, then everything progressive will sound like forced choice. If you start from the assumption that people should live and die under reasonable expectations of health, growth and participation in labor, able to bring up their children to aspire to a better living standards than their own, then progressive policies will make sense. If you start from the assumption that people deserve the life they have and everyone can pull themselves from their bootstraps, and only thing people lack is ambition and hard work, then the progressive policies will sound like stealing from the successful people. I personally believe that corporations should exist to serve their customers, their workers and then the shareholders, in that order.
      - nickpp 4y ago
        Actually I want what "progressives" say they want: > people should live and die under reasonable expectations of health, growth and participation in labor, able to bring up their children to aspire to a better living standards But I have enough real-world experience and I've been lied to by enough politicians to know that we will never get that through policies. We can only get it though the same mechanisms that pulled us out of poverty and exploitation and offered us this amazing bounty of choice we are enjoying every day in non-government-controlled-domains: free markets. This is why I support less restrictions and more opportunities for companies and startups. > I personally believe that corporations should exist to serve their customers, their workers and then the shareholders, in that order. I do not believe these are separate classes and instead they should mix together instead: anybody should be able to become shareholder at the company they work or consume from, start their own company or simply work for whomever they want.
- headhasthoughts 4y ago
  Bezos got three hundred thousand dollars from his parents to start Amazon. Gates only got the DOS deal because of his mother's connection to IBM. Zuckerberg's mother was a doctor, and his father a dentist. Musk's father owned an emerald mine. How rich are your parents?
  - nickpp 4y ago
    Growing under communism, my parents were dirt-poor. So after the fall I had to do it the hard way: first got a job, saved enough money to have a little runway, then start a small business, etc. But I have nothing against people who grew up under a humane system, got help from parents or VCs and made something of themselves. Because I know plenty of bums who had everything they ever needed and did absolutely nothing with it.

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...
    - BlueTemplar 4y ago
      Well, US companies being effectively illegal in EU since 2015 might shake things up ? For instance : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33751805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33751805
BlueTemplar 4y ago
These companies managed to because antitrust (and protectionism) are asleep on their job.
qwytw 4y ago
> more people would try What makes you think they didn't? There are hundreds of thousands (or way more) who 'failed' for every self-made billionaire.
hutzlibu 4y ago
Jeff Bezos is not seen by most as evil, because he is rich, but because he became rich by exploiting working people and other buisnesses wherever possible. It is not possible for everyone to successfully exploit others. You need some victims, too.
- nickpp 4y ago
  Jeff Bezor is seen as "evil" only by leftists who would love to steal people the freedom to choose where to work and how.
  - vaidhy 4y ago
    If you cannot see the asymmetry of power between an individual warehouse worker and Amazon, then everything progressive will sound like forced choice. If you start from the assumption that people should live and die under reasonable expectations of health, growth and participation in labor, able to bring up their children to aspire to a better living standards than their own, then progressive policies will make sense. If you start from the assumption that people deserve the life they have and everyone can pull themselves from their bootstraps, and only thing people lack is ambition and hard work, then the progressive policies will sound like stealing from the successful people. I personally believe that corporations should exist to serve their customers, their workers and then the shareholders, in that order.
    - nickpp 4y ago
      Actually I want what "progressives" say they want: > people should live and die under reasonable expectations of health, growth and participation in labor, able to bring up their children to aspire to a better living standards But I have enough real-world experience and I've been lied to by enough politicians to know that we will never get that through policies. We can only get it though the same mechanisms that pulled us out of poverty and exploitation and offered us this amazing bounty of choice we are enjoying every day in non-government-controlled-domains: free markets. This is why I support less restrictions and more opportunities for companies and startups. > I personally believe that corporations should exist to serve their customers, their workers and then the shareholders, in that order. I do not believe these are separate classes and instead they should mix together instead: anybody should be able to become shareholder at the company they work or consume from, start their own company or simply work for whomever they want.
headhasthoughts 4y ago
Bezos got three hundred thousand dollars from his parents to start Amazon. Gates only got the DOS deal because of his mother's connection to IBM. Zuckerberg's mother was a doctor, and his father a dentist. Musk's father owned an emerald mine. How rich are your parents?
- nickpp 4y ago
  Growing under communism, my parents were dirt-poor. So after the fall I had to do it the hard way: first got a job, saved enough money to have a little runway, then start a small business, etc. But I have nothing against people who grew up under a humane system, got help from parents or VCs and made something of themselves. Because I know plenty of bums who had everything they ever needed and did absolutely nothing with it.