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At the end of the day capitalism always comes back to bridges, trolls, control, volume, monopoly and power. NFLX can only continue to exist so long as it stands

At the end of the day capitalism always comes back to bridges, trolls, control, volume, monopoly and power. NFLX can only continue to exist so long as it stands in between people and the things they desperately want. If the good they sell is non-exclusive however, then they are only one amongst many competing trolls all controlling similar bridges to the same exact island. In such conditions, prices will invariably fall to the lowest cost distributor, and costs will invariably rise to the worst managed ones, squeezing one's margins to shit. It sucks to be one of the 10 different bridges that people can choose between to cross over to get the stuff that they want. It's also why being an airline sucks. Competition sucks. Hard. It also makes you a bitch to both your clients ("I'm switching right now unless you give me a better phone deal!") and to your suppliers ("So you need my content yesterday? Pay me X billion right now or you can go get fucked.") To make money long term you need to either be the lowest cost producer for non-exclusive goods, or the sole controller of exclusive goods. You can make money both ways, but the former is much, much, much harder. NFLX, and every other company in existence, is either going for volume or for monopoly. That is why they are producing original content. It's because volume sucks. It's also why startup success is largely luck based. Imagine a million different trolls, building a million different bridges, to a million different islands. Now imagine that upon one island a scarce metal is accidentally discovered and some random dipshit idiotic troll has just somehow, through sheer chance, managed to acquire exclusive control of the resource. Now, if you want to get that metal, you are going to have to pay that troll, and the more people want it, and the more desperately they need it, the fatter the troll will get. Stand between people and the things they desperately want and you'll never go hungry. But you might get some indigestion. Fuck competition. Become one with your inner troll; charge people through the nose for what they want, and then charge them again, and again, and again. And then when they can't take it any more, kill the product, and make another one. Rinse and repeat. In AAPL we trust; all others bring shitty margins. Previous comments on competition and monopoly here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5253747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5253747

maratd 13y ago
> Fuck competition. Become one with your inner troll What a morbid way of looking at things... and it's not terribly accurate, either. You can make a very good buck on volume, even with fierce competition and extremely tight margins. So you can't charge a whole lot for the toll because there are a dozen other bridges? Boo hoo! Have you thought of selling coffee to your clients as they pass? You can easily make up margin on the up-sell or cross-sell. Something that anybody who worked in consumer electronics retail already knows. And that type of retail is extremely low-margin and competitive. The guy across the street and on the internet has the same exact widget as you. This is something that Netflix isn't doing. Yet. And there's quite a bit of margin there. Oh and here's a little bit of insight, once you have a "bridge" you can point it at any "island". It's super easy, almost like copy and paste. How many countries have access to Netflix? There's plenty of opportunity in volume and you serve the greater good. Not every company has to be a hipster love fest like APPL, where you pay through the nose for substandard hardware. That's just as crass as children refusing to wear anything but brand name clothing. Volume capitalism is beautiful because it mercilessly lowers the price of goods, allowing access to all. And you can make quite a profit too!
- d23 13y ago
  > So you can't charge a whole lot for the toll because there are a dozen other bridges? Boo hoo! Have you thought of selling coffee to your clients as they pass? If nothing else, I've gotten some fantastic imagery out of this conversation.
- mbreese 13y ago
  You had me right up until calling Apple a hipster love fest with substandard hardware. This adds nothing to your argument and just makes you sound grumpy (as in get-off-my-lawn type of grumpy). The crass children comment just reinforces this picture. I personally find their hardware to be high quality, and most of their margins come from the supply side. But that's beside the point. True - you can make money on volume, but when you are in a race to the bottom in terms of price, something invariably suffers... it's usually quality. So, if you want to make money selling cheap crap, go right ahead - profit is profit. Just don't assume everyone wants to be in that business.
  - maratd 13y ago
    > You had me right up until calling Apple a hipster love fest with substandard hardware. Alright, alright. The hardware itself is, of course, not substandard. You're paying for the brand, so it's just overpriced. Yes, build quality is wonderful on the Air, but my Samsung Series 9 has similarly wonderful build quality. You're definitely paying for the brand. That's why everything they sell has a prominent Apple logo stamped on it. If it wasn't for that logo, people wouldn't fork over the kind of money they do. Yes, they built up their brand on good service and quality, but then, every luxury brand does that as well. Now, somebody has to be the luxury brand and somebody has to make "cheap crap" as you say. That's fine and there's nothing wrong with that. But please don't pretend that Apple is for the masses. It makes about as much sense as saying everybody should drive a Ferrari. My point was that not every business needs to be run like a luxury brand to make money. Look at Samsung and many others as an example. You can make plenty of money on volume, up-selling, and cross-selling, as well as expanding internationally.
    - fusiongyro 13y ago
mapgrep 13y ago
So it's come to this: A company spends tens of milions of dollars financing great shows that wouldn't exist otherwise, including one that was cancelled and left for dead, then makes it incredibly easy and cheap to get at this content, disrupting greedy inefficient incumbents -- only to be derided within the hacker community as a "troll... charging people through the nose for what they want." You don't have any entitlement to the things you want simply because you want them. When someone spends loads of money creating that thing you want, they can charge what they please. You are free to call them dumb of criticize their terms, but when you're reduced to calling an innovative and very low cost, low margin company like Netflix a "fat troll" you become the sort of caricature the worst, dumbest old line content companies love: A free rider who will never pay, no matter how good the terms, who has no respect for the efforts or rights of others.
- mbreese 13y ago
  In this context, I didn't consider the "troll" comments to have a negative connotation. In fact, I found it pretty descriptive. They could have just as easily have used "gatekeeper" or "toll-collector". Trolls under bridges though is a lot more fun to picture in my head.

maratd 13y ago

> Fuck competition. Become one with your inner troll What a morbid way of looking at things... and it's not terribly accurate, either. You can make a very good buck on volume, even with fierce competition and extremely tight margins. So you can't charge a whole lot for the toll because there are a dozen other bridges? Boo hoo! Have you thought of selling coffee to your clients as they pass? You can easily make up margin on the up-sell or cross-sell. Something that anybody who worked in consumer electronics retail already knows. And that type of retail is extremely low-margin and competitive. The guy across the street and on the internet has the same exact widget as you. This is something that Netflix isn't doing. Yet. And there's quite a bit of margin there. Oh and here's a little bit of insight, once you have a "bridge" you can point it at any "island". It's super easy, almost like copy and paste. How many countries have access to Netflix? There's plenty of opportunity in volume and you serve the greater good. Not every company has to be a hipster love fest like APPL, where you pay through the nose for substandard hardware. That's just as crass as children refusing to wear anything but brand name clothing. Volume capitalism is beautiful because it mercilessly lowers the price of goods, allowing access to all. And you can make quite a profit too!

d23 13y ago
> So you can't charge a whole lot for the toll because there are a dozen other bridges? Boo hoo! Have you thought of selling coffee to your clients as they pass? If nothing else, I've gotten some fantastic imagery out of this conversation.
mbreese 13y ago
You had me right up until calling Apple a hipster love fest with substandard hardware. This adds nothing to your argument and just makes you sound grumpy (as in get-off-my-lawn type of grumpy). The crass children comment just reinforces this picture. I personally find their hardware to be high quality, and most of their margins come from the supply side. But that's beside the point. True - you can make money on volume, but when you are in a race to the bottom in terms of price, something invariably suffers... it's usually quality. So, if you want to make money selling cheap crap, go right ahead - profit is profit. Just don't assume everyone wants to be in that business.
- maratd 13y ago
  > You had me right up until calling Apple a hipster love fest with substandard hardware. Alright, alright. The hardware itself is, of course, not substandard. You're paying for the brand, so it's just overpriced. Yes, build quality is wonderful on the Air, but my Samsung Series 9 has similarly wonderful build quality. You're definitely paying for the brand. That's why everything they sell has a prominent Apple logo stamped on it. If it wasn't for that logo, people wouldn't fork over the kind of money they do. Yes, they built up their brand on good service and quality, but then, every luxury brand does that as well. Now, somebody has to be the luxury brand and somebody has to make "cheap crap" as you say. That's fine and there's nothing wrong with that. But please don't pretend that Apple is for the masses. It makes about as much sense as saying everybody should drive a Ferrari. My point was that not every business needs to be run like a luxury brand to make money. Look at Samsung and many others as an example. You can make plenty of money on volume, up-selling, and cross-selling, as well as expanding internationally.
  - fusiongyro 13y ago

mapgrep 13y ago

So it's come to this: A company spends tens of milions of dollars financing great shows that wouldn't exist otherwise, including one that was cancelled and left for dead, then makes it incredibly easy and cheap to get at this content, disrupting greedy inefficient incumbents -- only to be derided within the hacker community as a "troll... charging people through the nose for what they want." You don't have any entitlement to the things you want simply because you want them. When someone spends loads of money creating that thing you want, they can charge what they please. You are free to call them dumb of criticize their terms, but when you're reduced to calling an innovative and very low cost, low margin company like Netflix a "fat troll" you become the sort of caricature the worst, dumbest old line content companies love: A free rider who will never pay, no matter how good the terms, who has no respect for the efforts or rights of others.

mbreese 13y ago
In this context, I didn't consider the "troll" comments to have a negative connotation. In fact, I found it pretty descriptive. They could have just as easily have used "gatekeeper" or "toll-collector". Trolls under bridges though is a lot more fun to picture in my head.