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Surely that's Twitter. Social media is already at saturation point, has established competitors, and Elon has managed to run it into the ground in terms of rev

Surely that's Twitter. Social media is already at saturation point, has established competitors, and Elon has managed to run it into the ground in terms of revenue and engagement. At least with The Boring Company, there's still value in making tunnels.

dangus 2y ago
Twitter is a really straightforward and proven business model. Gather user data and sell ads. That business model fuels some of the biggest tech companies in the world like Meta. It's a business that can be run with incredibly high margins because it's just web hosted software. The Boring Company has no active project outside of a curiosity of a "transportation" system that only runs during conventions in Las Vegas. Their landing page talks about mass transit as if it's not a solved problem - suggesting that the only possible solutions are flying cars or cars in tunnels. The Las Vegas loop already has its own traffic congestion in it, there are actual videos of people getting stuck in traffic down there. And the Tesla cars can't even drive autonomously even though the tunnels are a closed track with no other traffic. Meanwhile, China has 25,000 miles of high speed rail providing mass transportation to the second largest populated country on earth. One New York Subway train can move magnitudes more people than the Boring Company's projects.
- h0l0cube 2y ago
  > Twitter is a really straightforward and proven business model Social media is a really straightforward business model, as long as you can leverage network effects and provide something novel, but then it gets really hard to do both of those. Twitter when it started was a tenable business, but that business has since been irrevocably eroded by the competition. > high speed rail Uses tunnels. > New York Subway Uses tunnels. Want to go through a mountain instead of around it? Tunnels. Want to avoid a grid locked urban center? Tunnels. Want to go under a river instead of an expensive bridge over it? Tunnels. Of course, geology can be a problem. Sometimes it isn't the most economical option, but often it is a better option than bridges, and sometimes – as with mountains – it's the only option. Tunnels are a straightforward and proven business model. Boring I know.
  - dangus 2y ago
    The Boring Company’s tunnel product can’t be used for subway or rail tunnels. Link me a news story about Boring securing a single single rail or subway tunnel contract. The diameter is too small. That’s why it’s only used for vehicles, which must be professionally driven since tunnels are not built to public traffic standards, which is a pointless application. It’s literally an amusement park dark ride for adults at the country’s adult theme park. There was no disruption to be done in the tunneling industry. There is nothing a startup will come in and figure out that hasn’t been figured out by the construction industry. The Boring Company’s tunnel product only exists to steer municipalities away from improving transit access, just like Hyperloop was Elon’s way of distracting governments away from cheap, highly cost efficient high-speed rail. It’s literally the GM playbook: build more reasons for people to be dependent on buying cars. Don’t invest in a subway system, a loop of Teslas is cheaper, let’s just hand wave around how useless it is. Want to avoid a gridlocked urban center? Don’t count on The Boring Company to help out with their tunnels, they can’t even handle the traffic for CES. https://mashable.com/article/ces-las-vegas-boring-tunnel-tesla-traffic https://mashable.com/article/ces-las-vegas-boring-tunnel-tes...
    - h0l0cube 2y ago
      > The diameter is too small The diameter of their boring machines? > There is nothing a startup will come in and figure out that hasn’t been figured out by the construction industry. Because? Why not? Do you have some domain knowledge here? Is there really no room for new technology? > Elon’s way of distracting governments away from cheap, highly cost efficient high-speed rail. Hard to know if this was Elon's intention here. Certainly he held some belief in the Hyperloop concept, even if it ended up being unrealistic. I take it more as evidence that he doesn't have the kind of engineering chops that people ascribe to him. There's a lot of claims here I couldn't be bothered to fact check, and I think we're digressing from the point of contention. > Link me a news story about Boring securing a single single rail or subway tunnel contract. Now, I'll pay that. To date, they haven't used the business to do anything substantial. Boring Company might be vaporware, or misdirection, as you claim. But back to the point of contention. Twitter has made a clear financial loss for Elon – I'm sure that's irrefutable^ by now. It's value for him is some political sway over right wing voters, which isn't nothing, but it's at best an intangible gain. The Boring Company has value as a company that digs tunnels. Whether Elon will invest the time and resources to do anything substantial with it? Probably not. But at the least, it's not a money sink like Twitt.. erm, sorry... X. ^ https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/02/business/elon-musk-twitter-x-fidelity/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/02/business/elon-musk-twitte...

dangus 2y ago

Twitter is a really straightforward and proven business model. Gather user data and sell ads. That business model fuels some of the biggest tech companies in the world like Meta. It's a business that can be run with incredibly high margins because it's just web hosted software. The Boring Company has no active project outside of a curiosity of a "transportation" system that only runs during conventions in Las Vegas. Their landing page talks about mass transit as if it's not a solved problem - suggesting that the only possible solutions are flying cars or cars in tunnels. The Las Vegas loop already has its own traffic congestion in it, there are actual videos of people getting stuck in traffic down there. And the Tesla cars can't even drive autonomously even though the tunnels are a closed track with no other traffic. Meanwhile, China has 25,000 miles of high speed rail providing mass transportation to the second largest populated country on earth. One New York Subway train can move magnitudes more people than the Boring Company's projects.

h0l0cube 2y ago
> Twitter is a really straightforward and proven business model Social media is a really straightforward business model, as long as you can leverage network effects and provide something novel, but then it gets really hard to do both of those. Twitter when it started was a tenable business, but that business has since been irrevocably eroded by the competition. > high speed rail Uses tunnels. > New York Subway Uses tunnels. Want to go through a mountain instead of around it? Tunnels. Want to avoid a grid locked urban center? Tunnels. Want to go under a river instead of an expensive bridge over it? Tunnels. Of course, geology can be a problem. Sometimes it isn't the most economical option, but often it is a better option than bridges, and sometimes – as with mountains – it's the only option. Tunnels are a straightforward and proven business model. Boring I know.
- dangus 2y ago
  The Boring Company’s tunnel product can’t be used for subway or rail tunnels. Link me a news story about Boring securing a single single rail or subway tunnel contract. The diameter is too small. That’s why it’s only used for vehicles, which must be professionally driven since tunnels are not built to public traffic standards, which is a pointless application. It’s literally an amusement park dark ride for adults at the country’s adult theme park. There was no disruption to be done in the tunneling industry. There is nothing a startup will come in and figure out that hasn’t been figured out by the construction industry. The Boring Company’s tunnel product only exists to steer municipalities away from improving transit access, just like Hyperloop was Elon’s way of distracting governments away from cheap, highly cost efficient high-speed rail. It’s literally the GM playbook: build more reasons for people to be dependent on buying cars. Don’t invest in a subway system, a loop of Teslas is cheaper, let’s just hand wave around how useless it is. Want to avoid a gridlocked urban center? Don’t count on The Boring Company to help out with their tunnels, they can’t even handle the traffic for CES. https://mashable.com/article/ces-las-vegas-boring-tunnel-tesla-traffic https://mashable.com/article/ces-las-vegas-boring-tunnel-tes...
  - h0l0cube 2y ago
    > The diameter is too small The diameter of their boring machines? > There is nothing a startup will come in and figure out that hasn’t been figured out by the construction industry. Because? Why not? Do you have some domain knowledge here? Is there really no room for new technology? > Elon’s way of distracting governments away from cheap, highly cost efficient high-speed rail. Hard to know if this was Elon's intention here. Certainly he held some belief in the Hyperloop concept, even if it ended up being unrealistic. I take it more as evidence that he doesn't have the kind of engineering chops that people ascribe to him. There's a lot of claims here I couldn't be bothered to fact check, and I think we're digressing from the point of contention. > Link me a news story about Boring securing a single single rail or subway tunnel contract. Now, I'll pay that. To date, they haven't used the business to do anything substantial. Boring Company might be vaporware, or misdirection, as you claim. But back to the point of contention. Twitter has made a clear financial loss for Elon – I'm sure that's irrefutable^ by now. It's value for him is some political sway over right wing voters, which isn't nothing, but it's at best an intangible gain. The Boring Company has value as a company that digs tunnels. Whether Elon will invest the time and resources to do anything substantial with it? Probably not. But at the least, it's not a money sink like Twitt.. erm, sorry... X. ^ https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/02/business/elon-musk-twitter-x-fidelity/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/02/business/elon-musk-twitte...