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Comment by abuckenheimer | Hacker News Reader

I'm not surprised to see net neutrality mentioned as a risk factor.

Our platform depends on the quality of our users’ access to the internet. Certain features of our platform require significant bandwidth and fidelity to work effectively. Internet access is frequently provided by companies that have significant market power that could take actions that degrade, disrupt or increase the cost of user access to our platform, which would negatively impact our business.

I wonder if you could make an argument that public SAAS companies have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to support net neutrality policy.

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No, the fiduciary duty is not that prescriptive. The courts aren’t going to second-guess whether a corporation is taking the profit-maximizing action at all times.

They could also call out the flip side though, right? Dropbox could negotiate deals with the ISPs to "box out" smaller competitors. Maybe it costs them upfront but it also solidifies them in the market.

> Dropbox could negotiate deals with the ISPs to "box out" smaller competitors. Maybe it costs them upfront but it also solidifies them in the market.

Yes, if you're a short sighted MBA that wants to encourage your own extortion

Well, either way, their competitors are icloud/onedrive/googledrive... box'ing-out isnt going to be a successful strategy.

This describes a whole lot of business leaders.

That would be a shrewd business move unless the ISPs want to get into the same business.

+1, I think it’s sad to have to consider this, but business/capitalism is more of a chess game, especially if the shareholders perspective is the driving decision force.

The same move could also be considered defensive, like Netflix, which was essentially forced to do that.

If you don't control the network, though, it remains a risk. Whoever you partner with can renegotiate the terms later or back out of a contract depending on the exit terms (may cost them, but may be worth it for what they can get from Google).

This is the problem of the tenant, the renter. The landlord can change the terms and eat into your profits. At some point it's not worth dealing with them, but it's not always easy to leave.

But renters don't have market share.

If you're Amazon (Dropbox), you have a strong position to negotiate better shipping (network) rates from FedEx and UPS (ISPs).

Depending on how many companies you negotiate with (monopoly vs. monopsony).

And whether they’re competitors with each other. ISPs are largely regional monopolies so you can’t play them off each other as easily. They have the stronger bargaining position. Certainly stronger than Dropbox (people don’t buy internet service for Dropbox alone).

The problem here is that the competitors are companies like Google and Microsoft. If it came down to a bidding war, they could outbid Dropbox just by pulling loose change out of their couch cushions.

Their primary worries for competition though are mostly some of the biggest companies in the world. Not a bright idea for Dropbox at all

Yes, but that's not a "risk factor"... generally in an issuance document, the big pressure is to disclose all the material negatives of your business that you're aware of, partially so that down the road the SEC or your investors can't complain they weren't warned of that risk during the issuance.

Please don't use blockquote. it is absolutely unreadable on mobile.

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