However, I do predict that they will change in significant ways in the next decade.
* Apple is one Supreme Court ruling away from ending their App Store monopoly that could disrupt the entire world, since it would also affect all other digital marketplaces.
* Amazon is about to enter a decade of unionization all over the world.
* Google and Facebook both lost a key ability to micro-target on their ad platforms so they are both reinventing themselves to drive revenue from other sources, hardware being the biggest moats they can invest in.
* Netflix has some of the worlds brightest minds in data science and they've built up a war-chest of understanding viewing habits. They've also gobbled up a lot of key Hollywood players in the last few years, so I expect some huge cultural changes ahead as these creatives start to take more leadership roles in the company.
But I actually like the fact that they do limited run or self contained shows.
Not only does it mean that the show doesn't drag on for 10 seasons slowly reducing in quality until it's axed due to waning viewership.
But I've found their limited series runs to be more engaging since the writers and director are able to tell a self contained and complete story since they know the duration of the series and can pace out the story from start to end.
Also on a personal note, seeing a show has more than 5 seasons just feels like an exhausting time commitment to me at this point.
I actually really like the fact that streaming helps allow for limited runs with episodes of the length that they want to be though one always hopes that a series ends at a natural point.
And YouTube has a lot of ad supported movies and shows they are starting to roll out.
Meanwhile Meta is very much trying to develop interactive VR content.
My money is on Netflix, Prime (because we want the free shipping) and Disney.
With big heavyweights like Disney that own a huge percentage of content having their own services, netflix is really going to struggle being anything more than niche media providers (anime) and their own inhouse media.
If they are lucky, they'll be an HBO style platform. However, the quality of their in-house content has left a lot to be desired. Some is good, but a lot is garbage.
That netflix has technical chops isn't going to be a saving grace. Rather, it will mean engineers from netflix will likely be able to secure jobs at other streaming providers.
This is poignant as even the shittiest streaming service can dominate with the right IP. Content is king, engineering quality is not a differentiator.
Because of this, Netflix is ripe for disruption, which we've been witnessing creep up slowly over the last decade.
Netflix is easily the first of my several subscriptions to hit the chopping block, should it come to that.
If netflix keeps producing content at the rate it is, it won't be long until it has a fairly large back catalogue itself. At the end of the day it's Netflix's core business, whereas for most of the other streaming services it's a side gig.
The reasons the networks cared about the Nielsens so much was that they directly translated into how much they could charge for a 30 second ad block.
Netflix obviously does care about how many people are watching its shows. If no one is watching licensed content they won't renew licenses on it or similar content. If a new show isn't doing well and doesn't have passionate fans, they'll cancel it. (Possibly faster than a network would have.)
But they only care about how many people are watching something to the degree it increases the number of people subscribing which is a correlation that is harder to measure.
Everyone else have been learning, slowly, the lessons Netflix learned years ago.
Is anyone else even doing a program like OpenConnect? https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/
That's the sort of stuff that really sets netflix apart from the competition.
All that said, IMO, the average consumer doesn't really care about technical quality of the content, they care about the catalog.
And the first month pains were very clearly because it was rushed out to time it with the release of certain IPs during the pandemic.
I suspect that's WAI in their eyes, they're optimizing for eyeballs, not so much for quality.
As an example: the original Police Academy movie had both quality and a large audience. The rest of the franchise was increasingly cringy and saw, I assume, declining viewership.
The reason why Netflix should care about quality and not just eyeballs is that it's a leading indicator: Police Academy II may well have had a larger audience, surfing on the coattails of the first installment. But that's not a sustainable strategy, and unlike the producers of Police Academy XI, Netflix can't just leave the husk and find a new home if it ruins its brand.
So for Netflix, it's not just important to get many people to watch something. They also need to come away from the experience with a wish to repeat it. There may well be more to the experience than mere enjoyment, as well: I feel like there is a sense of "quality" I get when watching something that is distinct from my enjoyment, and that I am more likely to remember it, and fondly so, if I find that quality.
All that suggests a few ideas that mere viewership wouldn't: Netflix would try, for example, to keep me from watching something that I end up despising, and especially if I do so because I consider it "low-quality". You can do reality TV even if your audience has more Ivy League credentials than a New England Hospital, but you better make sure it has a chance to become a pop-cultural phenomenon, like, say, a show about interior decorating that neatly fits into a wider trend of minimalism.
This requires some combination of quality (whatever that means exactly), pop culture relevance (Squid Games), and good enough filler so that less selective viewers don't run out of stuff to watch. Of course, they can program for niches more than traditional broadcast TV did too.
The thing is, they now pump out their own content quickly enough that they don't need anyone else's anymore, and as I understand it, that was always their goal. I imagine most of the TV-watching population (myself included) is okay with mediocre shows/movies, and Netflix has enough content that you're unlikely to completely run out of stuff to watch on their platform.
What Netflix is currently lacking is big blockbuster movies with well-known actors, but even that is changing. (See: Red Notice, Army of the Dead, Bird Box, etc.)
I believe there are loads of production companies from all over the world willing to sell their productions to Netflix after those successes.
Producers in non English speaking countries will usually not have enough funding to promote all over the world or even in US.
I think Disney and HBO are quite stuck in approach where they sell rights and shows to other countries.
Presumably it also means that there's no reason for Netflix to be paying absolute top of the heap salaries for engineering talent. And I assume companies like Disney mostly don't and won't.
I'm not sure what you're comparing. Netflix's Jessica Jones, Daredevil, and Luke Cage were standouts. WandaVision and Loki are certainly flashier, but are they really better shows?
4 out for the top 5 grossing movies of all time for Disney (adjusted for inflation) are Marvel IP. By comparison none of the Marvel shows on Netflix have been a commercial hit for Netflix. Looking at the list of most watched Netflix shows none of those make the cut.
Basically Disney is well suited to turn Marvel IP into dollars and Netflix just wasn’t.
Oh. Well, I can't argue with that, especially since Netflix almost certainly never had the necessary rights to develop a revenue stream from merchandising. There is probably no other company on Earth better suited to turning IP into dollars than Disney, especially since they've acquired Pixar, Lucasfilm, Jim Henson, Marvel, etc. Netflix has only started trying to make tentpole 'blockbuster' (irony intended) movies in the past few years.
Probably not and that is why they didn’t bid, and the Netflix execs are in a better position to know than us… but I think the comparison is a little tilted against Netflix at least.
I imagine they had to pay for the IP for The Witcher and Altered Carbon.
If they came out with a phone, office suite, cloud service, social network, or something of that ilk, then yeah they'd be more in "tech company" territory again. Until then their engineering is going to assist their content production, not the other way around.
Headwinds for sure (Disney, Amazon, Apple!) but they seem to have made the right calls so far.
Which of Google, Facebook, Microsoft doesn't?
Everyone else are just making fancy spreadsheets.
With some of their big bets in custom SoCs, waymo, verily, and all of the research that comes out of it (especially in ML) are certainly interesting, I don't think any other companies are innovating at that level. Whether or not they will profit is another matter, of course.
Pixel has always lived in the shadow of Samsung and probably always will. Android hardware profit margins are slim. Chromebooks are doing well in education at the moment but they can’t break out of the low end of the market and each of their attempts to do so have failed. Devices overall are a mixed bag in my opinion.
Stadia isn’t very good, costs too much, has a mediocre game library, and given the massive development cost definitely hasn’t paid off and probably never will.
Nest is a business they acquired that’s continued to grow. This is definitely a win, but it’s a small one, and it definitely doesn’t pay for all the unsuccessful products they’ve built.
Custom SoCs are potentially promising, but it’s a specific niche and others are doing the same so that’s kind of a “wait and see” for me.
Their paid services don’t seem popular at all with the exception of gsuite & YouTube premium (which people mainly buy to get around annoyances like not being able to listen to audio from a video with your phone locked or switch apps on mobile while leaving a video running)
I expect a large chunk of that “other” revenue you mentioned is also Google Cloud which despite how hard they’ve tried is far behind it’s competitors and hasn’t seen nearly the growth that Azure in particular has had.
I don't think streaming games will ever quite work out for something like a first person shooter or competitive scenes, but I was really impressed otherwise. I didn't notice input lag nearly as much as I thought I would.
[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/with-skyrocketing-sales-yo...
Not only do they have publicly-usable self-driving vehicles on the road today, they are also testing autonomous trucks for freight. Both of these industries are worth multiple 10's of billions/year in the U.S. alone.
I agree this is definitely their biggest opportunity, but it may be more difficult to achieve mainstream success with it than it seems.
Look at the Witcher for an example. Or if you want to see this kind of shift happening over the course of a show, look at Madam Secretary. Season 1 didn't feature any of this crap and showed a strong woman main character that wasn't shoehorned in, by the last season everything was about "hurr durr let's ban guns and white men suck".
I'm not even white and I can notice the excellent storylines being ruined. It's like the writers don't know how to write a story with woke concepts that's actually strong so instead they shove it into every successful show until the show isn't successful anymore. HBO and Disney are going to eat their lunch at this rate with more compelling content.
By DNC, do you mean the Democratic National Committee? Have you considered that your worldview may be heavily biased by right-wing propaganda?
And I actually consider myself a leftist I just strongly dislike corporate Democrats. So if I sound like right wing propaganda that comes mainly for our mutual distaste for certain aspects of “progressives” in the U.S. or whatever you’d like to call them.
That’s a pretty good example of popular media using racial antagonism to divide & conquer the working class.
[1] https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/build-back-bette...
Being a Democrat these days is like being in a “union” that your bosses set up just to try and convince you that you had representation when they were deciding what you were going to “win” from “organizing” ahead of time.
This is why I dislike propaganda aimed at supporting them in television etc. No matter how nice the individual thing sounds, it serves to reinforce this institution who’s only mission in life is to fuck you over and continue extracting wealth from you and your family.
This is what I mean by shoehorned in. HBO Rome did a great job of integrating racial diversity in a plausible way that made sense in the context of the story. Egypt/North Africa historically had Numidians in major leadership roles. The Witcher does not bother to write a story that makes sense with the replaced characters.
Again, I'm not white and even I can notice these changes.
That doesn't sound like wokeness, it sounds like a character change that you just don't like. Fair enough, but it's not wokeness.
> Fringilla magically changed to be black even though EVERY other Nilfgaardian is white. Side characters were changed to be black
I just finished watching this series. Some actors have dark skin but it's not part of their character or even mentioned. There's no reference to any sort of Black culture or even nation in-universe where people tend darker. There's no sense in which they are black except for the literal colour of their skin. And at that level, there's no sense in which the characters in the books aren't black. There's no "changed to be black" here.
I assumed you had some objection about the actual storyline which does in fact revolve around discrimination against Witchers, racism and genocide and slavery against Elves, culture wars between nations, and cultures domineering others through centuries of abuse and slavery. But really you're just annoyed that some actors are black?
That's the _point_. The writing is completely unrelated to the actors being black. They were casted as black people because the writers/producers wanted black people for the sake of having black people on screen. If there was reference to black culture or some sort of backstory then it would be a _justified casting_ and I wouldn't be complaining.
You don't cast a British person as a Hispanic character in Narcos. Why are random characters in the Witcher magically changed to be black when there's no story reason for them to be black?
> I assumed you had some objection about the actual storyline which does in fact revolve around discrimination against Witchers, racism and genocide and slavery against Elves, culture wars between nations, and cultures domineering others through centuries of abuse and slavery
I actually think the Witcher does a great job at showing the effects of discrimination and racial conflict in this sense.
But they aren't British nor Hispanic. They're Nilfgaardian and Elves. If you have some idea in your head about what that means for skin colour, it's clearly not the same idea that the writers do.
Right, but the show casts all other Nilfgaardians and elves as white people. If the show casted all Nilfgaardians as black people or gave a story reason for a mixed composition then it would be compelling. But they don't. That's why Fringilla's casting seems shoehorned in.
When I meet a new black person they don't spend a bunch of time explaining to me why they're black. That would be pretty weird. It sounds like you have some real hangups about race that just isn't shared by the writers.
I'm not saying the black character is supposed to explain why they're black. I'm saying the writers should have written some reason into the story for why out of all the Nilfgaardians, Fringilla is the only one that's black. The black character doesn't need to be the one explaining it. Otherwise it seems like a poor casting choice because it doesn't make sense within the story. Which makes it seem shoehorned.
> Maybe there's some historical war that caused the blahblahblah migration of the whoseits to the whatsits
And that would have been great backstory to flesh out the universe...
> It sounds like you have some real hangups about race that just isn't shared by the writers.
It sounds like you don't feel like one character that has a different ethnicity than their entire fantasy race seems out of place. If in Black Panther there was a singular white main character and everyone else in Wakanda was black would you feel the same way?
> Why are you assuming her blackness means she must have been shoehorned into the role?
Perhaps because every other Nilfgaardian is white. If Nilfgaardians were a mixture then it would be a good casting. Just like if all Nilfgaardians were black then casting a white person as Fringilla would also be garbage casting.
You are free to assume in your fantasy world that outside appearance has no impact on story telling in a TV show but I and many others in the Witcher fanbase have opinions to the contrary.
I would say Black Panther is a story about blackness. The blackness of the main character is kind of the point of the whole thing, it’s even in the title. This is not true for the Nilfgaardians. There is no race component here to that story, so why does race need to be explained? Why don’t any other characters have to explain what makes them unique from the rest?
There is a parallel here I would like to draw. Growing up my class was all white, except one black kid. In a whole school of almost 1000 kids. I noticed he had to justify his existence a lot. People would ask him why he was there — as if he was lost or something. He was there because he lived in our community, and that’s really all there is to it. Nevertheless he had to have a reason to be at the school, while none of us did. It wasn’t enough for him to just exist.
They do. Geralt has a huge back story that explains why he's ripped and has a bunch of scars and why every peasant is afraid of him. Yennefer has a huge back story that explains why she's beautiful. If they casted someone ugly as Yennefer then that backstory wouldn't exactly apply anymore would it?
> I would say Black Panther is a story about blackness
Let's use another example then. Narcos - if some Asian guy was the one who auditioned best as Pablo Escobar, would you think that's good casting? Narcos is clearly not about Colombian culture, it's about the War on Drugs. If all the random cartel members are casted as Latino but the leader is Asian you think that's good casting? Or if we look at House of Cards - what if you replaced Garret Walker with a Korean dude. You think that's good casting?
> why does race need to be explained
Because one character is different from all the other people in their supposed race (Nilfgaardian). If there was a character that was taller than everyone in their kingdom I'd expect that to be explained too. Or if the character was white and everyone else was not.
> Growing up my class was all white, except one black kid
That's great, but completely irrelevant in this case. You are trying to impose your own social justice values on a high fantasy TV show. Ironically I find it's always white dudes in their 20s and 30s that have this view of the world. I bet you're white, male, a millennial or Gen Z, you live in a big city, and you work in tech.
And is that strength relevant to the story, or is it apropos of nothing? Yennefer's beauty has no context in the story? Of course it does - these qualities bring these characters power that shapes the events as they unfold. Fringilla does not derive her power from her blackness because it's not relevant to her character's story. It doesn't need to be explained because it doesn't advance the story.
The very simple explanation is: she's fantastic and terrifying in the role, and that's why she has the part. The exact pigmentation of the actress' skin doesn't need to be explained in the story, no matter the skin pigmentation of her co-stars.
> You think that's good casting?
I mean, maybe it's just my bad taste, but I see nothing wrong with any of your suggestions. But I haven't seen either of those programs so I can't really give a good answer. Is Garret Walker anti-Korean? Is that why it would be a bad decision?
> If there was a character that was taller than everyone in their kingdom I'd expect that to be explained too.
Why? Some people are just taller than others. The explanation is: that guy is taller. We don't know why, he just is. We all grew to this height, and he just kept growing until he got to that height. The same thing goes for skin tone. For all you know this is a sampling issue. We're talking about a fantasy race here. If you really want some sort of satisfactory explanation, go write some fanfiction.
> You are trying to impose your own social justice values on a high fantasy TV show.
No, I'm actually projecting the experience of my youth onto this situation right now. I'm not trying to impose my view on anything -- quite the opposite; I'm saying things are fine the way they are.
I'm actually going to bookmark this conversation as a discussion piece because there's a lot to unpack here, you've been very candid.
> I bet you're white, male, a millennial or Gen Z, you live in a big city, and you work in tech.
Right on 3, wrong on 2 - I'll let you guess which!
Funny, you've got the same attitude of condescending moral superiority as the demographics I mentioned too. You act as if you speak for all people of color (as a white person), who need to be defended by you, the savior. You probably consciously think you're just trying to help. Unfortunately you're not the first person of this type I've encountered on HN.
It is just as unrelated to them being White where the actors chosen are White. “Black needs justification but White doesn't” is a recipe (long followed, btw) for White favoritism in casting.
YYou realize in Narcos they cast a Brazilian actor to play Pablo Escobar a famous Columbian. The actor had to literally learn Spanish for the role and despite his best spoke with an obvious Brazilian accent. Besides Pablo, numerous other characters were played by actors who, while native Spanish speakers are not from Columbia and you can tell by their accent. You literally couldn't have picked a worse example to make your point.A
The whole plot is based on "good natured people who are different are unjustly considered monsters because of prejudice, and have to do bad things because of it", and they'll make sure to mention this injustice every 2 minutes or so.
When it's not about "bigotry", it's about girls proving they are "strong independent women" by dressing boys etc...
Maybe the authors find a way to turn it all on its head, but considering the naiive seriousness in which all this is delivered, I don't think so.
From what I've seen, all this series is for people who are still amused by all the "antiestablishment" trope
These companies will not fail, but could face existential headwinds that no amount of money will 'fix'.
...
"Netflix has some of the worlds brightest minds in data science"
Their data science is a 3rd tier issue. #1 is their incumbency, #2 is the content they produce.
-> Netflix 'problem' is increasing competition from HBO, Disney and others.
...
"Apple is one Supreme Court ruling away from ending their App Store monopoly that could disrupt the entire world"
No, their App Store will do just fine. They will reduce their 30% cut to something lower and companies will stay there because of the distribution opportunity: being in App Store will mean considerably more downloads.
-> Apples 'problem' is that their iPhone is slowly becoming a commodity - there's only so many ways to 'improve' upon it and those margins will probably come down.
...
"Google and Facebook both lost a key ability to micro-target on their ad platforms"
No, they have not, they have enough data.
-> Facebook's problem is that FB usage is going down, Insta is a bit stagnating and they have little to replace it with.
-> Google's problem is that they have no obvious new products on the horizon to grow and that it's possible DDG and others may actually start to eat away at them (probably not, but possible).
...
"Amazon is about to enter a decade of unionization all over the world."
Probably not so much, and, rules are entirely different around the world.
Amazon's problem is that it's never been profitable and there's only so many ways to make that business work.
As fast delivery and one-click purchase work out in regular retail, AMZN advantage is limited.
AWS however, the profit base doesn't show any signs of slowing down.
They'll likely mostly turn into another studio with a streaming platform.
It's an acronym specifically for those companies, which is why Microsoft was excluded.
(And TBH, it had been a surprise to be FANG, not FAMG to begin with)
Works for me.
Although back in 2013 the criteria was: "totally dominant in their markets". AFAIK, Microsoft dominates only two markets (OS and office suites) and it's only if we limit ourselves to desktop; even then, it's not a total domination.
> Cramer expanded FANG to FAANG in 2017, adding Apple to the other four companies due to its revenues placing it as a potential Fortune 50 company.
Today, especially with Netflix being less unique technically (they did a lot of early out-of-the-box stuff like going all in on AWS and microservices), they're pretty much an outlier from the other companies although as far as I know they still pay very well. As they become more of a studio they'll become even more of an outlier.
Microsoft certainly has more in common with the others, but their stock (as well as the company generally) was out of favor when Cramer coined the term.
A poll about FAANG with netflix and excluding microsoft seems simply like a poll about a group of companies that a tv show host made a catchy acronym about, rather than a poll about which of the big tech companies today is likely to decline or not.
also, as they invest in developing proprietary production software they could get an advantage over other studios.
And Netflix themselves has released a fair bit of code as open source.
MAGMA: Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon.
I regularly see comments like: "The public clouds providers like Amazon, Google, and I suppose even Oracle".
It's kind of hilarious to see people just skip over the second biggest company in the world like it doesn't even exist in their minds.
But I don't actually see Netflix programming as aiming to make, e.g. reality TV drek. Most of their programming does seem to be aiming for midbrow quality although it often doesn't hit it.
If the Netflix recommendation engine is the result of any data science then obviously they have no special knowledge from their mountain of data because the engine is worthless.
Netflix originals are available everywhere, the licensed content is far more restrictive. On Prime the only things available outside the US are Amazon Originals. Hulu won’t even let you log in if you’re outside the US. For whatever reason, legacy media decided they don’t want the rest of the world to be fans of their content and give them money for it. Disney is an exception since they’re starting to expand Disney+ overseas.
No, legacy media has distribution issues which they address by licensing distribution geographically before release, and once those rights are divided it's very hard to reconsolidate them.
Movie theaters and broadcast/cable are still a thing, and still an important component of how legacy video makes money on content. And the geographic distribution issues there still exist. And for them to work, geographic exclusivity can't ignore streaming, either.
You can't convince me that, say, Warner Bros doesn't have sufficient leverage to wrest their online streaming rights away from some Bulgarian movie theater chain or whatever. I mean, come on.
This is not always true, and it depends on the nature of the “Original”. There’s really two classes: Originals fully owned by Netflix, and ones produced in partnership with a traditional TV network. The latter are branded as Netflix Originals everywhere except their home country (where they are carried by the local network instead).
> On Prime the only things available outside the US are Amazon Originals.
This isn’t true; the UK also has a lot of licensed content, if you have Prime in the UK. My understanding is they do in other markets where they offer Prime as well, but you only get access to the full library when you’re in the region where you have Prime, unlike Netflix.
That may be part of their content licensing, but that could also be a commercial decision by Amazon. (eg I also don’t get other Prime benefits from Amazon.de with my .co.uk Prime subscription.)
I dropped them in 2020.
Let this be a lesson. Data and fancy algorithms can NEVER replace a smart human who cares. Data and algorithms can enhance and expedite humans - but if your humans are stupid, you will just make stupid decisions faster
Features such as only using company generated ratings, aggressively cancelling shows, and the lack of ability to browse/sort/filter the catalog, in favor of Netflix pushing the recommendations they choose on users, is probably great for quarterly KPIs but bad for long term customer satisfaction.
Netflix is of course already a behemoth and not going anywhere but I expect their future to be much more of a generic media company than an elite tech company.
- Disney has Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and a long tail of childhood classic films. - HBO has Warner Brothers, DC, Cartoon Network (including a nostalgia back catalog), the best TV shows made in the 00s, and a long tail of adult films. - Netflix's largest successes in the last two years are Tiger King, Squid Game, The Witcher, and a long tail of shows cancelled after Season 1 and short-run miniseries.
At this point, Netflix is a last-resort source of entertainment for me, even after (ad-riddled) YouTube. I mostly only use it to watch their weird reality shows (Blown Away, Sugar Rush) and check out shows friends recommend. I suspect even Paramount+ has a larger selection of TV shows I'd like to watch compared to Netflix.
I think all of those companies fall into common problem of falling deep into A/B test local maximum. It's impossible to rework entire site at once, especially for an A/B test.
Ha, that is so true. Netflix is infamous for this. It’s to the extent that I cannot start watching a Netflix production unless I know it’s finished or if it’s a big hit from day one (so I know it won’t be cancelled, like The Witcher). It’s odd, because Netflix’s reputation for prematurely cancelling content without resolving their endings has extended to beyond just youth-dominated social media. For example, my parents of all people who cannot use a computer nor the internet, don’t like investing in new Netflix content because they’ve been burned too many times from incomplete series. That’s just like me. It’s sad because Netflix dared to create decent and interesting content, but now it would be hard to escape their infamy.
People don’t want to watch shows in case it gets cancelled early. Then Netflix cancels the show early because there wasn’t enough interest.
If they didn’t have the reputation people would watch the shows and if it’s good tell their friends. At this point it seems like everyone just stays away though.
They could always just keep making new seasons to add to their catalog and eventually people might watch it, but it seems risky to spend the money.
Following in the footsteps of that other company starting with the alphabet G where products are in perpetual beta?
Is it on the discoverability side or the watching side?
Watching is a seamless experience IMO - It really does just work, all the buttons and responses are perfect.
It constantly recommends the same stuff over and over despite the fact that I never click on it because I don't want to watch it.
It doesn't notify me when there's new episodes or seasons to a show I've previously watched (a year is a long time to wait for new episodes).
I'm not a fan of the UX.
Somethings are much better for everyone to have a common experience without it being unique.
Your second and third point though are accurate for me too. Thanks for explaining.
The UI constantly shuffles around, having to hunt for my list or currently watching shows is particularly annoying.
Incessant autoplay that couldn't be disabled for years, and still can't be in all cases.
Awful controls for browsing content. The categories are meaningless and constantly changing.
There's no way to find new shows I'm likely to like within the app. They refuse to have any sort of objective ratings and the custom ones are unbelievably bad, even after years of watching. I have to go to outside sources any time I want to find a new show.
I could go on. Prime gets a lot of criticism for their UX but I actually much prefer it to Netflix's. At least with Prime the ratings have some signal and the layout is simple and consistent. It's not pretty but at least it doesn't go out of the way to annoy me, which is just fine with me. Amazon has probably spent far less on their UX but has a better result.
Even so much so I can’t find shows I saw ads for in 2017 or 2018 even existing because they were so bad. It makes me feel the Mandela effect is happening.
Plus I hate their way of trying to soup up stale content by making various sexy versions of cover art. Like The Net with Sandra Bullock. A long forgotten, mediocre, and comically out-dated tech thriller. People were wandering right past it on Blockbuster Video shelves. That’s how old and stale it is. Yet Netflix goes and sources these sexy shots of Bullock in an attempt to get me to watch it. I find the whole thing very insulting.
But the main question is, why can't Netflix write a recommendation engine that actually shows me something I want to watch?
Even in music--where everyone actually has a pretty complete catalog--recommendation is pretty bad.
However, if the app store were to open up, it could create a more vibrant ecosystem underneath and even create even more network effects within ios. Less direct money for apple but more vibrant developer economy.
iPhone usage is approaching 90% for the next generation in the us, so it will be ripe for regulation.
Netflix's first free-cash-flow positive year was 2020. A measly $2B, less than 10% of Facebook's (the least cash flowing FAAMG).
Netflix is a big company, but not in the same league as FAAMG.
Consolidated statement of net income for each year (page 22 of the PDF):
2020: ~$2.7b on 200m members
2019: ~$1.8b on 167m members
2018: ~$1.2b on 139m members
2017: ~$0.5b on 110m members
2016: ~$0.2b on 89m members
Every outlet cancels underperforming shows. Netflix fires a lot of more against the wall than just about anyone else, so they end up with a lot more that doesn't stick.
Yes each of these has enough of a war chest that they could drift along for a decade + several have ownership structures where there wouldn't be market pressure to remove the C-level / board if that happened.
That said... each of these has weaknesses. I think about Microsoft (the one missing from the list that rightfully belongs there...)... they came out of their lost decade a very different company. Their stock price barely moved for that entire time, though has since rebounded. It's not that hard to imagine that Netflix is just one of many streaming studios in another 5-10 years, or that people might be just as willing to turn to another search provider than Google. Facebook seems to be acutely aware that its core big blue app is seen as a baby boomer thing and that it had better do things to stay relevant to another generation. So - too big to fail? Maybe, but then again we could ask GE, GM, and Ma Bell that same question once upon a time.
I just can't see putting netflix and google search in the same basket.
Note the discussion not just here on HN but across several channels over the past 48 hours about how bad Google Search results have become. Personally, apart from a Google Business page I don't use any other Google products and haven't in years. Their product track record is poor and their search quality has slipped. Given another 5-10 years, I don't find it difficult at all to believe that someone like Apple, if they wanted to replace Google entirely as the default search on their device, couldn't make significant headway in search market share.
Sure, Netflix and Google aren't the same here - that wasn't my point. My point was simply in reference to the previous poster's comment about "too big to fail." The past 100 years of the stock market is littered with companies that were deemed unstoppable leviathans.
World wide is probably too strong a claim, but I think here's something to this. However, I think this would work in Amazon's favor. It would make warehousing quite a bit more expensive and would be a significant barrier to competitors. AWS provides them with deep pockets, and the have a huge advantage in logistics so I think they could eat the cost and keep moving. It would also suck a lot of air out of the anti-amazon movement, such that it is. One day delivery with high labor standards might be the pitch that catapults them to real market dominance.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-21/inside-am...
Apple will still have their hardware business.
Amazon's AWS business is unaffected by their online shopping platform business.
Facebook is facing a reputation crisis that is also causing regulators to come down on it hard, and beyond the many well-justified criticisms, many also use it as a scapegoat and a punching bag for politicians to show off. That's not a good position to be in.
Now days you can get internet for $50 or $100 (depending on location, speed etc).
Then if you wanted say 5 of the various platforms, that's going to roughly be $50 to $70 more. So that's still a likely savings.
And on top of that, all new movies are basically being PRODUCED by these networks, so for the most part you don't need a theater (or their prices).
And on top of all that, instead of just fully subscribing to all of them, just get one at a time. Want the new Dexter series, get Showtime. Done with that? drop it until season 2 is out.
So it definitely can be a lot cheaper than the old days.
And yes, it definitely can be cheaper if you willing to actively manage what subscriptions you need and don't need one month at a time.
Its significantly better than cable TV still. I also dont get people reminiscing about one streaming service dominating, we shouldnt be wishing for monopolies. Everyone coming out with their own platform should drive up competition and give us better quality services
I also find collecting to be satisfying, there's something nice about knowing that Netflix can't just decide to take Arcane away from me
In Australia I can’t get anything better than 1080 for some unknown reason, it’s not because it doesn’t exist in higher quality - torrent sites often list 4K resolution files. Presumably it’s the potato-quality internet in this country.
Now its mostly just Netflix originals which aren't necessarily bad but maybe not worth it's own subscription every month.
Obviously waiting for DVDs to arrive is a hassle in comparison to watch-at-any-time streaming but that's ok tradeoff for the freedom it gives me to chose a title to watch from its vast DVD and Blue Ray catalog.
https://streamhash.com/how-does-netflix-license-tv-shows-and...
That's a great exaggeration. There was never a time when you could name a film and expect it to be on Netflix to stream.
And many people don't even have DVD players anymore. I don't.
I think film students and the like. It's become a niche product, not a mass-market one.
Many companies fail to adapt and stick with old business models. Netflix did the exact opposite and took their dvd business behind the barn and shot it in the head.
The only reason I do is because gaming consoles double as DVD players now. I assume that's a leading force in why others might have DVD players, too.
The wording here sounded a bit off to me here; I read it as "usually Blu-ray quality is worse or the same as streaming quality but sometimes it's better" while I think what you probably meant (and would make a lot more sense) was "usually streaming is just as good as Blu-ray but sometimes the streaming quality is bad and a Blu-ray is better".
Is the latter what you meant?
Though there is also the possibility that there's a 4K version of a movie available to stream but not released on Blu-ray. Maybe that's what you referred to?
Full HD 1080p bitrates are a similar story, Blu Ray is much higher than streaming (36Mb/s vs around 6Mb/s, respectively)[3][4].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_HD_Blu-ray
[2] https://big-photography.com/guides/what-is-netflix-4k-bitrat...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray#Bit_rate
[4] https://www.howtogeek.com/338983/how-much-data-does-netflix-...
- The perceived streaming quality may match Blu-ray because the bitrate is high enough that humans can't tell the difference anymore. This is especially likely to be the case is the content isn't challenging.
- The perceived quality may be higher than Blu-Ray because 4K is available for streaming but not as a Blu-Ray release. So the comparison isn't 1080p streaming vs. 1080p Blu-ray but 4K streaming vs. 1080p Blu-ray. If you plot perceived quality vs. bitrate against each other for multiple resolutions, you usually find that it makes sense to increase resolution at lower bitrates than you might expect. I'd honestly expect that 16Mb/s 4K would look better to viewers than 40Mb/s 1080p. Plus, 4K is usually encoded using a more modern and efficient codec than the ancient ones we use for 1080p Blu-ray.
But note that I'm talking about perceived quality here. Higher bitrates might lead to higher computed quality metrics like PSNR and SSIM but past a point, those metrics no longer have any correlation to human perception and that point is lower than you might think.
I wonder if the same story will happen with regards to lossy video compression, I mean perhaps, once our tech will be so much better that we will be able to use lossless formats for video, people will look back at the formats we have today and think that they look bad.
Remember VHS? I used to think they looked alright back then :-)
I think that the lower adoption of Blu Ray vs. streaming is purely due to convenience, not quality. Most people don't want to deal with physical media. In the same way that uncompressed audio is better than Spotify and similar services, yet almost no one buys audio CDs any more.
In Audio, there are now services that let you download uncompressed and/or lossless audio (Bandcamp, Beatport etc.), they are not as mainstream as Spotify but they are moderately successful and have their place in the market.
I wonder if the same thing could happen for movies: offering higher quality downloadable movies, without the physical medium. Perhaps cinephiles could be interested. Maybe it will happen when average bandwidth, at least in the developed world, approaches the equivalent of a 4K Blu Ray bitrate: no one wants to wait for a long download to end, people want just-in-time streaming.
(Note: Blu Ray, unlike Audio CD, is not lossless, it's just that it's got much less compression than the typical streaming services).
When it comes to video compression though, industry practice is largely based on the result of user testing. There are well-controlled tests where a bunch of people are put in a specific test environment and shown videos encoded using different parameters and there are larger scale A/B tests where a streaming platform will tweak parameters and see how they affect metrics like time spent consuming content. So I'm confident that the compression of today matches the users and hardware of today.
However hardware can change and I expect that's what will drive increases in video quality. For example the encodes of today are biases to some extent by the fact that people watch videos on tiny screens like phones or tablets, which are likely a bottleneck for quality perception. If people start consuming more content on say VR headsets, streaming platforms may see the need to increase quality. 8K is also a possible driver (especially for very large displays).
Connectivity is also a big deal. Lossless music is possible because the bitrate is relatively low but streaming 4K blu-ray is out of the question for many people at the moment. In the future though it's definitely a possibility.
The library is huge and goes back decades. There are usually good user reviews at the Netflix web site for guidance. I suspect there are thousands of theatrically released movies that Netflix only offers on disc, not streaming.
In the last ten years, I've rented almost 900 movies (including a few TV shows like Breaking Bad) on disc, so that's well below $2/rental. I live about 50 miles from the nearest distribution center, so turnaround is almost always just two days, because the post office scans the returned disk when I post it, so Netflix sends out the new one the next day, even before they receive my return. They did pull a fast one a few years back by silently stopping outgoing shipments on Saturdays, but I live with it.
Discs have great resolution, often have bonus features, and almost always have closed captioning, which I appreciate more and more as I age. And the credits don't get reduced to a thumbnail on screen so the next show can be promoted. And I don't have to log in, or enable wi-fi on my TV.
I use an old PS3 as my blu ray player, works great with a Logitech remote control, supports HDMI output. I also have a blu-ray external disk drive for my laptop if I'm on the road (only about $100 as I recall).
Since Netflix is primarily responsible for putting Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, and various local video stores out of business, I'd be really pissed if they ended the disc rental service.
Don't they get scratched these days? I remember the DVD days of Blockbuster, and also thinking "DVD as a technology is just not ready for rental" every time I got a disc that was scratched and/or had sticky stuff glued to it.
̶A̶l̶s̶o̶,̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶U̶K̶,̶ ̶N̶e̶t̶f̶l̶i̶x̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶c̶ ̶r̶e̶n̶t̶a̶l̶ ̶s̶e̶r̶v̶i̶c̶e̶.̶ edit: I'm mistaken, they used to. There's just one provider left here that does (called Cinema Paradiso).
Certainly convenient though if you didn't care much when you saw something.
That's not what your parent comment was suggesting. It was saying that Netflix's streaming collection was the same as Blockbuster's physical DVD collection, which was big but not unlimited (i.e. "every film you can think of")
(Aware of the cuties debacle, but this is a rather overt example, aforementioned are sometimes subtle.)
What does “pro paedophile tendencies” even mean? Can you give concrete examples of this? I’ve never heard this accusation before…
Big Mouth (a cartoon) is about child sex
Emily in Paris, character lead has sex with a 17yo on screen.
There are more, I just can't bring them to mind at the moment. Perhaps I should begin to document them.
Hmm... Black Mirror (the Netflix episodes) had child sex in, End of The Fucking World had child sex in it; although both with negative consequences so poor examples.
Maybe it's coincidental, but it is something I've started to notice more and more.
Keep it in mind next time you watch some shows on Netflix and perhaps it will stand out.
Not quite sure how that's pedophilic. Not any adults being attracted to kids. Just horny teenagers being horny teenagers.
Not seen Emily in Paris so I can't comment.
And you already covered EotfW and Black Mirror showing its a bad thing.
Not sure I'd call that pedophilic either unless simply touching the subject of pedophilia is somehow "promoting" it.
Was referring to above; Netflix didn't create any of those. But yes, over time they'll have old entries in the Netflix catalog.
Their first original (House of Cards) was only 9 years ago
The biggest problem is finding what you want. Need a TV Guide for streaming, so I can search for say "The Martian", and it would tell me "This is on netflix in your country", or "this isn't available on subscription, but you can rent it on amazon for x.xx or buy it on apple tv for y.yy"
If they are just a content provider to apple, they lost.
Also you can't get most streaming content on cable, or the sports content I get on cable without 4 streaming services (ESPN+, Peacock, Paramount+ & Hulu).
So I've got a cable package w/ sports + a couple streaming services. Sometimes I'll pick one up for a month or 2 and drop it just for something I want to see. Sometimes I rent something from Amazon.
It's just a mess.
But the search is pretty easy. My Rokus, Amazon sticks, or even cable box search fine for me.
Also has a nifty feature where you can list all available episodes of a show across all seasons and it will mix in your live recordings with streaming options. I honestly don't know why Tivo doesn't get a lot more love. Cable when you aren't paying per-TV fees for boxes is pretty great. Just a couple of bucks a month for a cable card in the Tivo and then you hook up Tivo Mini units on all of the other TVs in your house to access the main box.
I still haven't seen Game of Thrones.
But it was quite a success for RIAA/MPAA to stick a label of criminal to everyone who downloads free audio-visual content even if it's not true. Though, let's not aid them in their quest by throwing sentences like 'illegal content' too frequently around.
Covenant on Kodi was the first and last time I actually felt like TV was in the future.
Having to switch apps is a trivial inconvenience. Seems to me that price-point is what we should be focusing on, and I'm fairly confident things have improved greatly.
More generally, I'm sceptical of any argument that laments the lack of a monopoly.
Certainly myriad streaming services are better than cable- but are they better than pirating? Harder to be confident of that now than a few years ago
Absolutely not. I am absolutely confident of that statement. One box of drives, a small machine to act as a Plex server, and VPN is all you need. Pre-made, high quality tools exist to automate everything. It's almost completely friction-less.
Pirating is easier, better, and faster now than it has ever been. The push to splinter streaming services is only speeding up its adoption, again. Cable is the old cable, streaming services are the new cable, but with more barriers and more difficult setup.
For giggles, I just went ahead and priced this out:
One-time costs:
* Plex Pass: $80
* NZB indexer access: $10 (for 2 or 3)
Ongoing monthly costs:
* File server (three-year deprecation): $55
* IPTV: $15
* Unlimited Usenet account: $3
This took an afternoon of setup, but has just worked since. Heck, the other day I discovered a new season of a show had apparently been released – because it completed downloading and filled Plex overnight.
- Resume does not work reliably
- Subtitles are ugly and un-configurable
I will keep monitoring it from time-to-time, and switch from Plex as soon as these 2 problems are fixed. Thanks for recommending, I have been on the lookout for such an app for a long time.
I picked up Thundernews when there was an "unlimited for $4" sale going on, and have used it ever since. Keep an eye out for their sales, because they don't seem to expire them. They resell UsenetExpress so pick up a block account or two from another provider for fills as always.
And don't get me started on Netflix auto-preview (which cannot be disabled on my device).
I had Netflix and Prime till recently in an effort to promote the defragmentation of streaming services as a show of unity but, its getting worse. And these guys do not need my money while the service they provide gets worse and worse.
Also, many of these platforms made the strange decision to not accept subscriptions from locations outside the US in the beginning. I tried to subscribe to Disney+ and HBO max when they started, but was denied due to location.
Probably works now, but I don't care. They had their one chance.
Interestingly, from a physical perspective there's not much difference between saying "fagm" and saying "fact". But one of those is easy for English speakers and one is impossible.
Coarticulated velar/labial consonants exist in other languages, though.
I don't think they're the only ones with this issue. Job hoppers can get bigger raises than people staying and climbing the ladder "the old fashioned way".
Also worth noting that while many in Seattle complain about housing costs, cost of living is much lower than in the bay area. That was definitely part of my calculus for accepting an MS offer years ago.
https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Google,Facebook,Microsoft&tr...
No. I work for a FAANG company at the moment and Microsoft was my previous employer and i can confirm that Microsoft significantly underpays when compared with FAANG.
Netflix is a TV company. Their tech is a commodity. An important commodity, for sure, but it's not what makes them valuable. Their critical offering is their reach and programming.
FAAMG (or MAAAM now, I guess?) is a sane grouping of giant companies because their critical offerings and expertise areas are their software and their platforms. I think Google would be totally capable of reimplementing Netflix's streaming services if they needed to, but after years of trying they still haven't been able to fully match Amazon Web Services. That's the difference between Big Company and Big Tech Company. Similarly, it's why Tesla isn't on this list: they're huge and growing and they write software, but their software is just a means to an end, not a valuable platform in itself.
But it is a “commodity” in the sense that it’s just a thing that needs to be built to support their product offering, and which other similar companies with similar product offerings have built. Disney+ exists, Hulu exists, Amazon built Prime Video, Google has been operating YouTube for years. If you need to serve streaming video, it’s no longer a groundbreaking feat to be able to do it.
Perhaps some sort of "Tube" that "You" could use to watch content, maybe with a subscription option?
It's a lot easier for Disney and their ilk to build streaming services than it is for Netflix to build Disney's content catalog. Props to Netflix though, they've been punching above their weight in that area.
Reminds me of the Dow Jones, which is just 30 somewhat-arbitrary companies, and is basically the sum of the stock prices of those companies (yes, that means a $800/share company matters 20X more than a $20/share company).
Microsoft
Alphabet
Apple
Amazon
Netflix
F*** the MMAAAN!
FB may be getting slaughtered by the media, hated by both the left and the right, but the truth is no one is actually leaving FB. It's still the #1 place to find restaurants, buy/sell used items, neighborhood groups, etc etc etc. And if FB Proper were to ever fall behind, IG still has a lot of stamina left.
I don't think it will happen any time soon, but I would like to see Apple decline. Their ideals and design and software quality from the previous decades are nowhere to be seen. Their software and UX especially have suffered from mismanagement, and I wonder how bad it will need to get before people start switching away. The alternatives are still behind, but the gap is closing in a bad way.
I don't think Facebook (or Meta) will disappear, but I do think it is the mostly likely to decline.
The only one I think may disappear is Netflix - this is because Facebook benefits from the network effect which helps slow any sudden decline as all your family are still on it etc. whereas Netflix just needs a bad run of poor quality content and it could lose a lot of subscribers to competing services.
Netflix is also less diversified (even though now it's adding Netflix Games for some reason.. we'll see how popular that is..) which further weakens its position.
I would argue that while Facebook/Meta has been more of a gradual evolution Netflix has shown that it can transition to a whole new way of working within its domain. They revolutionised DVD rentals by combining a web UI with efficient warehousing and logistics. When they saw that infrastructure was getting close to making streaming viable they pivoted to digital delivery and not only did it allow them to keep their existing customer base who would have eventually moved away from DVD rentals on their own, but it also brought in other international markets where DVD rentals never would have worked.
I think I agree that Facebook/Meta will decline without disappearing in much the same way that IBM has. They will acquire new businesses and sell off old ones without really being seen as particularly innovative. Netflix on the other hand I think will stick around but will likely change into more of a content producer rather than a distributor like it has been. Beyond that, who knows?
I wish it was true but I feel like their quality is great where it matters. One of the biggest threats to technology is that Apple successfully captures a large slice of the computing world into a proprietary architecture with Apple extensions. Having spent a decade plus with Intel as a lingua franca we may not appreciate yet how this has kept parts of Apple's ecosystem open and the computing world interoperable.
I tried marketplace but it's empty in my area. Restaurants don't use it, nor do neighbourhoods.
I'm not saying you're wrong but we'd need to see numbers to say which of our experiences is the more average one.
Facebook's other properties are successful for now though. WhatsApp is prolific around me in a way Messenger is very much not and Instagram has some level of popularity, though TikTok is the new shiny thing.
Yelp
> buy/sell used items,
Craigslist or Patch
> neighborhood groups
Nextdoor
I've been an FB user for ages, and don't use it for any of the things you list. Mostly just staying in touch with distant relatives, school chums and professional colleagues that I know socially, and a few special interest groups. I only log in to FB maybe 2-4 times per week, for less than an hour at a time.
Also Yelp is practically nonexistent in my suburban area. And restaurants often have more updates/activity on their FB pages than their own standalone websites.
And older people seem to think Nextdoor is a scam since they keep using real people's names on paper mail when they weren't aware that they consented to it after signing up.
I don't post regularly on Facebook, because my old FB friends are not very active. I'm in the age (late 30s) where you don't meet so many new people, and if you do it is no longer appropriate to add them on FB. So it is effectively dead for me. I communicate with one person via FB messenger and post uni events there. On Whatsapp, I communicate with my family and some coworkers. Everyone else is on Signal, Telegram, Instagram, maybe Twitter. TikTok is terrifying.
Also, where else would you post an event details page aside from Facebook? Meetup? That's even more dead..
I dunno, I guess for events FB is still the place to go.
Sure. Still millions of eyes for ads, and those eyes have money to spend after they rage out in the comments of a targeted news post about wokeism or vaccine mandates.
Although, I didn't pick FB, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the votes were just people that picked the company they thought might grow the least. Or the company they hate the most - which no one should be surprised is FB by a large margin. It's been the tech punching bag for like almost a decade now.
The largest reason I DON'T see a decline from FB is that everyone has been talking about how much they hate FB for years. And despite that, it's still been growing like a weed.
Want to get regular updates from local businesses, local government, hobby groups, sports and cultural events? You'll find it on FB. Sure, most of those also have their own dedicated websites or similar, 90% of the most recent info comes to FB first.
Same goes for community groups, public announcements, and what not. Older people (50 and up) are well-established on FB, and have no plans to move anywhere else. So it might be true that FB has become a "boomer platform", but at least those users are very active and very loyal. Many of these older users get all their news and updates via FB.
I'd imagine that this would be the case in similar towns and places.
I don't think this is a good thing. It means change won't be easy to implement because their customer base relies on it for a certain function, if that function changes too much or goes away, they loose what's left.
But, then again, I think that's just the result of people casually trading their data for convenience. For most people, it's apparently no big deal.
So long as I’m keeping my account as a calendar of friends’ events but never (ever) actually use or interact with the platform in other ways, it would seem I’m just an expensive freeloader.
People know there isn’t much point “leaving” Facebook for integrity reasons. They know who I am anyway.
I’m guessing I’m not alone in using their service this way.
They are getting their lunch eaten amongst young people by TikTok.
Nearly all pro-Facebook ( or more accurately described as non Facebook hostile ) opinion has been downvoted in the past five years. And they were less than 5% of the comments. They are so rare I could nearly count them with my fingers.
>It's still the #1 place to find restaurants, buy/sell used items, neighborhood groups, etc etc etc.
The demographics within HN tends to not use Facebook for those functions. At least there are very little evidence any comments, opinion or votes has shown they do. Not to mention it tends to be US and EUR specific.
Amazon is also kept up by AWS, which who knows if one day that is spun off.
That would in turn alleviate a lot of the governmental attacks and bad press. I can't think of anyone who hates Amazon the service - they hate Amazon the pee-bottle-broker and tornado-warning-ignorer.
As for other e-commerce sites, they'll probably just buy them, crush them, or if they can't do that - sell them logistics and infrastructure services.
[edit] Consider FedEx vs UPS. FedEx can't hire staffers right now, while UPS, unionized, saw basically zero attrition. FedEx is suffering right now. UPS, crushing it. [1]
The massive labor shortage that’s rocked the U.S. since the pandemic and disrupted long-established employment relationships hasn’t had much impact on UPS, which pays its unionized drivers the highest wages in the industry. That’s helped it maintain a stable workforce and rising profits throughout the current disruptions. Meanwhile, lower-paying, nonunionized FedEx racked up $450 million in extra costs because of labor shortages. And while UPS easily beat earnings expectations and predicted a rising profit margin in the U.S. for the fourth quarter, FedEx signaled that its profit margin will fall further.
Wait, what? They do have a huge problem with counterfeit crap sold via bait-and-switch reviews.
Edit: A related article https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/12/amazon-still-has...
But a fair call-out nonetheless.
I don't like the destruction of smaller companies. Why go with a smaller company who is going to charge more for the product, quite probably charge for shipping, all while taking longer with the shipping?
everyone over 30 i know are past facebook and realize Instagram is adware/spyware.
My survey isn't very data heavy, but from the people I know, it's mostly older people and the people who stayed in my hometown that still use it.
I fully expect them to continue to be able to monetize their user base, and purchase smaller competitors for a while.
The most recent warning flag for me is their rebranding. Announcing a major pivot to center on Occulus (I’m sorry “the metaverse”.), when VR has been nothing more than niche gaming is very weird and troublesome.
On the bright side, Facebook is a giant ossified megacorp. All that’s going to happen is some division is going to get new signage, and every PM is going to update their slide decks to say “metaverse”, and everyone is going to do what they were already doing.
FB’s predilection to reorg every six months, isn’t a sign of strength. It’s actually a sign of dysfunction. They’ve just been able to power through by being extraordinarily lucky in the social networking space. It’s tire spinning.
The company hasn’t released a noteworthy product in at least a decade.
It’s an ossified megacorp.
It’s niche.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/metaverse-needs-more-than-vr-ch...
To simplify, if you have captured over 50 percent of the entire english-speaking Internet population, sure you have a huge network effect behind you. But if that population count is multiplied by 100x and your numbers don't grow alongside that, your network effect is not as strong.
There is this phenomenon I witness time and time again, people confuse what they wish to happen; the decline or death of Facebook with any real facts.
It is like saying Apple is doomed for 10 years and yet Apple is now a 3 trillion company.
the youngsters seem more interested in insta and tiktok
... which is owned by FB. Between Instagram securing the audience of the next generation, and Whatsapp gaining huge share as the communication tool of developing world, FB is going to do just fine, even if facebook.com usage totally tanks (also unlikely)
As for Whatsapp, it makes no money, and there are plenty of non-monetized instant messengers, so I can't see them making a profit there.
The one thing they still have is Instagram, but it's "reels" haven't beaten tiktok, and it's already filled to exhaustion with ads, so it's a matter of time before it's popularity starts to decline.
As for the multiverse, that will never amount to anything.
Then something else (possibly NOT FB owned) will take over... like another tik tok. Kids don't want to be on the same social as their parents. Its gonna be a revolving door every 5 or 10 years.
This poses a massive institutional risk to any social network. They either need to aggressively pump out new brands to try and capture that themselves, or buy promising startups, but it wouldn't be too difficult to fail at both of those and just completely skip a generation. A few of those misses added up could be a terminal failure.
Tiktok seems to have largely displaced Snapchat in under two years.
That's an interesting perspective, I was pretty convinced that facebook was almost dead since all of my friends (in France) have almost completely stopper using it. Well most of us are still casually browsing it every once in a while, but it's far less often than it used to be, and worse: we don't have interactions together on that platform. The last remaining usage was events, but since covid basically killed most large-group events for a while, even this usage died off.
I wonder if it's more of a group difference, or maybe it depends from country to country. Where do you live?
I reflexively answered the poll with Facebook because I hate it, but then I realized that I'm probably closer to killing my Netflix account than my Facebook account, and I doubted my answer. Now you've convinced me again that Facebook is most in decline.
Also, people die. I already get from time a reminder of the birthday of somebody that I know died. That's creepy as hell and it's only going to get worse.
In my opinion the only redeeming feature of Facebook at the moment are private groups, but that in my opinion is not enough to sustain a social network, since many are moving to WhatsApp, Telegram and the like.
I deleted Facebook last year. At that point, I had 420 friends, 10 of whom were dead. One of them I discovered was dead while going through the list of all my friends making notes of who they were. This was despite numerous posts on her wall about her death. The damned algorithm didn't bother to show me that bit of news.
I think people will be as wrong about his VR plays as they were about the Instagram acquisition.
Facebook makes most of their money from their ad network that mostly exists on sites that nobody actually needs to visit (Facebook, ig). In addition, Meta is spending a boat load on engineers who don't really want to work there, so they can make a "metaverse" which I'll bet most of them don't give half a shit about. Then they're going to market the hell out of it and at the end of the day I just don't think that many people are going to use it enough to make it all worthwhile.
I could be wrong but I think if Meta isn't careful in how they diversify their focus they could face a real reckoning that has nothing to do with their current political pushback.
Google search is still pretty good, and their ad network is used throughout the internet so I think they're safe.
Amazon will do whatever it takes to keep sales up, so I have faith in them. If nothing else they're a company that seems extremely capable of adapting to changing market conditions.
Apple is currently doing fine with their devices. I think the health industry will adopt some of their tech soon (like the apple watch) to get some of that sweet, sweet healthcare / insurance money
That leaves the "worst" of the group to either Facebook or Netflix.
I haven't heard much about what Netflix is doing, but things seem to be going generally okay so far.
Facebook has extremely negative news all over the media on seemingly both the tech and political side. For example, malicious targeting of children and their platform being used for fake news / propaganda. On the tech side, I don't have confidence in their current, future, or past projects such as Oculus or their extreme hype around the metaverse.
For these reasons (by default and past/present/future speculation) given the wording on this question, I think Facebook is the obvious "loser."
What about over 50?
I have never used any mainstream social media. I do participate in this and a few other online forums. For communicating directly with others online, I use email.
The "AI" has basically re-created Sport Illustrated in scroll form.
My guess is that none of these will stop growing in the next few years, but Facebook is especially undervalued. They execute on new products faster and better than the others listed, so regardless of current sentiment they are probably not going to fail any time soon.
I chose Netflix because I have the least evidence to suggest they will remain stable, but would say the odds are <10% any of these have a lower market cap in 5 years than they do now.
And which ones are worthwhile?
The only thing I could think of without cheating and using Google is the Oculus line. I'm not personally convinced there's a huge VR market, but there could be, and Facebook probably has the best product for this market. They aren't competing against the other megacorps listed in that particular market though, so I can't evaluate if they execute faster/better than others.
I know Apple executes pretty well on products, and at a rate that far exceeds my own upgrade cycle.
I don't find it a very good definition. Implementing a feature is not a new product.
Netflix has a lot of room to grow in new markets, gaming and possibly other types of media. I think they can continue to produce good content and I think some smaller players that are locking content to their own services might return to Netflix in the future (like Microsoft, Sony and EA are now all back on Steam)
I don't think any of these companies is in serious threat of decline, but out of all of them Google seems most stagnant.
However, this doesn't mean Google/Alphabet itself, with its diverse product suite and huge amount of advertising data, will decline in any meaningful sense; that will happen on a much slower scale.
From an ad-pipeline perspective, Google isn't entirely left behind in this new world, they still have YouTube, Google maps, Gmail, etc. However, they missed most of social and e-commerce, which feels irrecoverable at this point.
Amazon's marketplace dominance is pretty US/UK specific, and even there, there are plenty of alternatives. Amazon marketplace is actually only available natively in a small handful of countries.
I feel like most people in this thread are grossly overevaluating Amazon's ability to stay relevant. If a competitor pops up with consistently better prices/better products/better marketing then they'll steal users from Amazon and over time dominance is lost.
What exactly does Amazon have that prevents me from stopping the use of it?
Google has excellent quality search results and a ton of products with a huge lock-in to their account ecosystem. Apple has fantastic product quality. Meta has a ridiculous network effect in three of the four products I use it for -- I can't even leave two of them (Whatsapp and FB) despite not even liking them! And Netflix consistently produces and publishes some of my favourite shows.
Amazon has nothing I can't get elsewhere, it's just a bit more consolidated. With the exception of AWS, and as I said upthread, who knows if that will remain the same company.
Because of this, I expect them to make a ton of money off consumer retail even if their marketplace fades into the background. The brand management business on Amazon has been growing like crazy too, which pretty much assures Amazon will always be taking their dollar.
I mean, IBM is still around aren’t they.
FWIW today is my last day at Google (after 10 years), so maybe that's informing what I'm about to write...
I don't have any particular pick from any of this list which is dominant over any other, but...
People keep bringing up Google Search still being leading and dominant... but Ads is Google's revenue source and product ... and that's only partially driven by search traffic. Even without Search, Google would still be the strongest presence in online advertising.
Google's share price is buoyed quarter after quarter by Google coming in with growth in ads revenue quarter after quarter.
I don't think it's controversial to speculate that some day that has to stop. It's just taking a long time to stop. All markets have a saturation.
When it does, that will have some kind of cascading effect on Google as a whole. Engineering retention, vulnerability to competition, etc.
I think a similar kind of dynamic applies to Facebook as well, with some differences around market segment etc.
At least a couple of these companies' success depends on their ability not so much to innovate or produce a better product but to retain the right talent to stop other people from innovating or producing a better product. And to continue to do what they're already doing at scale. A failure to hand out hundreds of thousands in RSUs per engineer every year and an end to siphoning talent straight out of universities and into their payroll.. and all of that will start to crumble.
On the other hand, I think we could see FB utterly collapse over the next decade. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
It will be interesting to see in what direction Netflix decides to expand or if they will just stay in the movie and series business. I feel like they should have bought CrunchyRoll instead of Sony, that's a missed opportunity imo. But since they're trying some game experiments they might decide to buy some game developers? Or a big music streaming company, that would almost fit better with their business?
Messenger, Whatsapp and Instagram are very sticky. I don't see them disappearing anytime soon. Facebook has a massive image problem though, so who knows how that affects their VR attempts?
I disagree. I play for Netflix and Amazon Prime video (that was a cross-sell). I'm not playing for another.
If everything is one one service, then I'll pay for it. That was the original promise of Netflix. But now everyone wants to play that game.
Two services, maybe I'll pay. N services? Screw that, might as well go back to torrenting. And then, why keep Netflix?
Paying for TV shows is _voluntary_. Consumers are willing to pay, but only up to a point. Jerk them around too much, and the consent goes away - not only will Netflix get only a slice of the pie, but the whole pie will be smaller.
For me it has to be Google, yeah FB too for obvious reasons but Google got too big and their products have been showing a detrimental pattern. They will be around but people are using tiktok and friends in lieu of youtube and their main revenue source is ADs via search and I see many good competitors in that space. New apps and enganging services don't really rely on google search. The main spenders are merchants and being able to get virtual foot traffic without Google's help is getting easier by the day.
Both Google and FB (Alphabet/Meta) are clouded by the arrogance an deep pocket brings where they thing their cash will somehow overcome the law of diminishing returns. Their historical predecessors like AT&T, IBM & Cisco are good examples. You can tell by how they treat their customers. Apple and Amazon know better, they keep their status because they know their deep pockets are always vulnerable and they need to treat their users very well even if they have to treat their employees like shit. I thing google and fb will just keep investing in new companies, lawyers and lobbyists to rhyme with history.
Example: I thing GCP is superior but I would bet on AWS support more than GCP any day! I think android can be customized to provide a better security and private environment but I would bet having a good UX with iOS any day.
I contributed to this. My first thought was that netflix doesn't really have special sauce anymore. They exist in a highly competitive market and lack the back catalog of established media companies. As a result, they end up paying way too much money for both new shows, and established ones.
On the other side of the coin, they can't compete with the volume of free content that is created by YouTube.
It's pretty easy to start a streaming service today, and many specialized streaming services have been successful.
In my person experience, my NF usage has gone to zero, being replaced with YouTube, Nebula, and HBOMax, with the occasional hop onto Prime for the odd rental. And I was as big of a NF diehard as any; I was paying for streaming since they started offering it.
Yes, but those many top YouTubers make great videos and were looking for a way to transition to paid content. I feel, if Netflix leadership had the right chops, they would have seen an opportunity here and spent a tiny fraction of their massive content budget to court some of these creators and have them make expanded videos for Netflix. Instead, these creators banded together and made their own streaming platform which receives free advertisement on YouTube.
There's nothing like that for Netflix: its amount of unique subscribers is within the same order of magnitude as Amazon Prime Video and Disney+, and as long as you aren't halfway through a series unsubscribing is easy.
I think Netflix is one underwhelming season of content during an economic crisis away from failing.
Netflix will buy/be bought. Much like cell phone carriers, ISPs, and CATV companies, consolidation will leave only a few heavy hitters. Netflix would be a nice addition to Peacock or Paramount+ and would give each a sense of legitimacy.
Meanwhile, Facebook has made many enemies on all sides; they're synonymous with tracking users, fake news, and old folks. I can't think of anyone who doesn't use Facebook somewhat begrudgingly. Also, does anyone actually like FB/Meta? Or Zuckerberg, the defacto face of the company? Facebook is one or two gaffes away from where Myspace is today.
Meta owns WhatsApp and Instagram, two of the biggest social networks, that are ubiquitous with younger generations. It does not matter that Facebook is associated with old people, because Facebook also owns the places where all the young people are at.
You're wrong. I work with teens. They all use both. For different reasons.
TikTok is much more creator/viewer like YouTube, where few make content, and many watch.
Instagram is where there are close "circles" (heh, G+?) of friends, and everyone is just following and making content for each-other.
Especially in countries without net neutrality, social networks may be included in your phone plan even when real internet isn't -- forcing many local businesses to interact with their customers over instagram, whatsapp or facebook messenger. (Having a website is pointless if most of your customers cannot reach it).
??
Netflix is worth more than both Universal and CBS combined.
1. Netflix (~50% chance) - I feel it's only bundled with the rest of FAANG to make it sound better. In any case, HBO/Disney/Apple/whoever producing a cultural phenomenon like "Game of Thrones" would be enough for Netflix to lose the lead. Netflix wants to game viewers based on big data, but I feel like that will only lead to more and more generic stuff being produced.
2. Facebook (~25% chance) - It has pissed off multiple governments and other tech giants. Younger generations don't really care about it, and older people are starting to understand that it thrives on outrage.
3. Google (~10% chance) - Most of their services are slowly becoming worse, but I feel there's at least another decade before disruption time.
4. Apple (~1% chance) - Even if they need to allow additional app stores by law, I don't see that significantly impacting their bottom line. iPhone/iPad/Watch are the device to own in their categories, and the latest crop of Macbooks have been absolutely stellar. Additionally, they have by far the most devout userbase out of any big tech company. If anything can hurt Apple, that's the NIH syndrome, but it's more of a long-term concern.
5. Amazon (0% chance) - Yeah, not happening. Amazon is synonymous with online retail in a time when online retail is what keeps the world going. And AWS is only going to grow, even if it somehow manages to fall behind Azure. Labor unions will certainly show up, but so will automation.
Meanwhile, Facebook's greatest strength is quickly copying or buying their promising new competitors. Somehow that seems like the strategy of company trying to prevent hemorrhaging. And it doesn't seem likely to scale long term now that they're on government radar.
Hard for me to see how it wouldn't be FB/meta. They're betting the farm on something unproven / creating new habits / maintaining habits that seem to be waning.
The cloud computing fad could go away and Amazon would still be the #1 retailer.
Google, Microsoft will get bigger probably more government contract related.
Netflix is in the worst poor position. There costs for high end production are extremely high because they have to overpay for top talent. So they take years to continue a series or cancel successful ones because actors want raises. The availability of fresh existing shows keeps going down while costs go up.
So I don't see Netflix as particular a leader in content, scale, or value.
Their best (only?) post-streaming tech innovation is the collaborative filtering. A way of finding something passable to watch that is better that channel flipping broadcast TV. Now there is so much great content that people just go straight to the show with the buzz.
If there is one promising area they lead now I'd say it's internationalized content like Squid Game and Money Heist, but I'm not convinced this is big enough moat.
Netflix, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple.
Netflix because their moat isn't strong enough.
Facebook because of monetized-ads model and backlash against social media in general.
Google also because of monetized-ads model and declining quality of search results.
Amazon and Apple are relatively safe IMO.
Amazon is the most at risk from unionization and regulation, potentially breaking up their business verticals. But motivation to do this seems to have subsided after last years congressional hearings.
Apple is really only at risk if people start questioning shelling out thousands for the "shiny new thing".
Also, Amazon could easily reel in 3rd party sellers and impose quality control. It's an unused lever in their toolbox. They've decided that exchanging brand quality for higher free cash flow is a better trade off for the time being.
No idea if my own personal preferences or needs have anything to do with overall appeal or decline.
I worked for Sun Microsystems once, late 90s-2001. A lot of people figured the dot com thing would take a tumble, but felt good about Sun's prospects (as workers and as an investment) because Sun made real tangible things, servers and workstations.
Amazon, at the time, was a bookstore with a "dot com" tacked on to the end.
Apple hadn't yet released OS X and was often accused of coasting on good looks and being pretty.
There was no facebook and wouldn't be for a few more years... there was "the globe", friendster, a few of those. When I was at Sun, I sat in an office that is now facebook.
Google was around, though a lot of people were saying search was no longer a differentiator, and that the important thing for a search engine was to become a portal and be "sticky", and be a bit more like a content provider, entertainment hub, and so forth.
The people who thought Sun was a good bet made perfect sense - in retrospect, they had it wrong, and some people accurately pointed this out at the time... but you could make a reasonable case for Sun.
So... just sayin'
Personally, I think "social networking" has value, but trying to use Facebook is a net negative for me, so I don't get any value out of it at all! On the other hand, I get some value out of SnapChat and TikTok, for as little as I do use them.
That doesn't mean one of them will "win" and overtake Facebook for social networking purposes, but it does mean there is competition, and the original open question of how valuable social networking of the sort Facebook provides will remain into the future.
It is likely that various countries will push Facebook around and force it to somehow respect local laws regarding freedom of speech or criminalization of hate speech. This needs a lot of human moderators whose aggregated compensation might sink the company, unless it starts charging the users.
But charging the users turns them into customers and makes them way more assertive against their business partners in disputes. Yet another source of extra costs.
But, surprisingly Netflix seems to ending up on second place. I think that's shortsighted and not taking into account how deeply they're integrated into the film production industry by now.
It's one thing to build a streaming platform and acquire some customers. It's a whole different game to do this and create great content.
PS: My bet is google. Just look at their deteriorating search results and the missing other revenue streams.
I think the problem with Netflix is there's a ceiling. Disney (which owns, like, all the IP out there... not to mention theme parks, sports and countless other things) is worth $288bn and Netflix is somehow worth $291bn!?
Sure, Netflix has some decent movies out there... but do you really think their catalogue even begins to touch Disney? Either Disney is undervalued (probably true) or Netflix is overvalued (definitely true), and Netflix doesn't currently seem to have significant momentum.
Source (Nov 2021): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-11/netflix-s...
EDIT: I posted a longer list of their IP below, but don't forget that Disney owns a majority of Hulu and their television/movies!
Are you counting the entire back catalog of 20th Century Fox?
EDIT: Although, I forgot they own Hulu. We use Hulu about as much as Netflix :) They get content at a good pace.
Touché!
MANGA
"Decline" is also not defined. I am interpreting it as "lose a significant amount of users", not as a question to predict their stock price.
I voted Amazon, and given the scores, I feel compelled to explain why.
- AWS is a massive beast within Amazon, and it seems increasingly likely that it'll be spun up into its own company
- Beyond its other attempts at diversifying, Amazon-the-marketplace is garnering worse and worse reputation. Unless they severely change their ways, other players will catch up. Amazon's huge sell to customers used to be its product reliability and customer support. Both of these have suffered tremendously.
- Covid accelerated a lot of the online trends which makes me think Amazon is past its peak.
I could elaborate but it's getting late. FB the website will likely decline in the coming years, but MZ has shown an astounding capacity of staying ahead of trends and buying winners (Instagram, Whatsapp, Oculus). Netflix I do find likely to decline but not as much as Amazon, and most of all Netflix still has lots of potential for growth. Google seems Too Big To Fail, at best my gut says they will stagnate. And apple I just don't know enough about but they seem very safe.
But its Facebook for sure. If it wasn't for buying Instagram they would circling the drain right now.
Google is the king of search and ads. Apple is the premium product company and now chip maker. Netflix is in a saturated market but have proven they can make original content. Amazon runs the vast majority of the internet on its servers, let alone retail sales.
They are "older" though, being older than Apple is more a measure of how long they've been successful. Microsoft and Apple often battle for larger market capitalization. They both deliver software and hardware, and the two of the most popular operating systems in use (Windows, Android, iOS). Microsoft is arguably more B2B, while Apple has a more recognized consumer brand.
Microsoft is infamous for messing up on the consumer end, and Windows 11 feels like a repeat of this. On the other hand, they are still doing well with their Xbox division. But are they omitted from this poll because of the assumption that their core business... selling to other businesses, will carry them on indefinitely?
Fang is a catchy word, and the "m" does not neatly fit into it or an alternative acronym that is as catchy.
BANAMAM!
Without it, MANAMA!
Amazon - Needs to clean up the 3rd party seller mess, but that will just make them better. They still offer good service.
Netflix - They're being replaced (unfortunately) by a bunch of different streaming services so they will never have as full a catalog as they did.
Apple - Hmmm. Still making great products people want to pay for. Probably near their peak customer value like MS circa 2003.
Facebook - Just make it go away. Doesn't mean it will though.
Google - Fading in search relevance but hasn't been displaced yet. They'll be here for a while longer.
So I'm going with Netflix as most likely to decline over the next few years.
[0] https://www.iotworldtoday.com/2021/09/08/arm-loses-china/
Labor issues, easy antitrust (you can just cut off AWS, Audible etc.) , and a new more passive CEO sounds pretty dangerous to me.
Anecdotally everyone from my school who went is somewhere else within a year and half or so.
If you're just looking at the consumer end of it, maybe. but over the last couple years amazon has become one of if not the largest logistics company in the world, and across the full line from supplier to last-mile delivery. it's not sexy innovation like a new iPhone is, but they've been developing a huge moat and as long as customers want quick delivery of their online purchases, amazon is a long ways in front of any competitor.
All the complaints about review fraud or inventory commingling are small-potatoes compared to the ability to do next-day delivery of millions of different SKUs to a large portion of the planet.
But right now, Oculus is simply too bulky and too low-res for any sort of meaningful digital work.
I think what Spatial.io has done with the Halo Lens looks promising.
So it means Meta has the chance to be the Android to Apple's iPhone in the VR/AR space. The main challenge to me looks like that nobody can match Apple's silicon for this kind of application so Meta simply won't be able to compete in the same league as far as on-device computing power. Then, philisophically, I don't think Zuckerberg will be able to stomache opening up the Oculus/Quest ecosystem to become the open "yin" to Apple's closed ecosystem "yang". I don't think offering a second ecosystem that is just as closed is going to cut it if they want to get anywhere near what Apple's market share will be. So there's a strong risk this turns out more like Apple Watch vs Android Wear rather than iPhone vs Android.
Whatever happens, it will be pretty interesting to observe.
Amazon and Google are conglomerates now. So, if you are just focusing on Amazon.com and Google search/ads/email - then it's hard to tell.
Of course, non of that will touch AWS...
Edit only for poor sentences, no content change.
Apple has a bajillion dollar war-chest that could last forever, but they feel the most creatively bankrupt.
Apple's real vulnerability in my view is that most of their value arises from extraordinarily high margins which in turn are driven by perception / fashion. They run the risk that losing that fashion shine at any point will rapidly cause a catastrophic loss of marketshare. Staying perpetually in fashion with young people is notoriously difficult - their default is to orient away from whatever their parents did and do something else. It's very hard too look cool copying Mom and Dad.
Well put. The iPhone is going on 15 years old. Once-hip iPhone users are becoming parents to children and teenagers that are getting their first devices. The iPhone will go the way of the Blackberry in the next 5-10 years and Apple will need to reinvent itself (again, without Jobs) in this time or see a rapid decline.
(1) I keep hearing fantastic things about their new M1 processors and laptops, and it actually has me slightly interested in Apple for the first time in my life, so that's impressive.
(2) Just the extreme loyalty among people who are Apple customers.
The M1 may be a nice processor, but do people actually need a nicer processor? Before the M1, were iPhone users really going "gee I really could use more cores"?
Sure, faster tech is always better, but I'm of the position that the M1 craze is >95% marketing propaganda and <5% genuine "this is a qualitative and necessary improvement to my user experience".
Apple enthusiasts definitely want to believe that Apple is constantly innovating and ahead of the game. And there are a lot of them, notably on HN.
All of these companies are extremely rich and powerful, but they won't disrupt themselves.
They barely compete in practice, they are happy to live in a stable ecosystem they own.
They won't be displaced easily, but they will, at some point, in the mean time technology in their space is unlikely to progress as quickly as it could.
"Teenage users of the Facebook app in the US had declined by 13 percent since 2019 and were projected to drop 45 percent over the next two years, driving an overall decline in daily users in the company’s most lucrative ad market."[0]
Sounds pretty dire to me. Dire enough to prompt the rebranding and pivot into Meta. They'd be my first choice. Netflix, 2nd, is just content (with some great tech under the hood), but just content paid for by a monthly subscription.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/22743744/facebook-teen-usage-declin...
- Netflix already feels like an outlier in that list because they're not as technically focused as any of the other ones listed. They feel more like a media company these days, not a tech company, and as time goes on there's less and less differentiating them from any other media company/streaming service.
- If Metaverse doesn't pan out for them, I don't see either FB or Insta having a revival in popularity in the coming years. The only family I have still under 20 have deleted or abandoned FB, and I don't see the younger generation bothering with the "keep up with family" social network, and Insta keeps getting its lunch eaten with all its competitors. It feels like Insta is going to get a competitor at some point that will take its main offering (photographic status updates, basically) and then it'll suffer the same fate of irrelevancy.
Amazon = 238.08 Netflix = 219.32 Google = 73.95 Facebook = 68.36 Apple = 63.17
The Shiller PE Ratio of the S&P 500 is current ~30. All of these companies are overpriced, and Amazon and Netflix significantly so.
FB is the obvious one, but they see the writing on the wall and are making plans. I think google is the one that has been complacent but doesn't realize it, so its the one most likely to fail. Its also the only one without effective competition, which is all the more reason it will be taken by surprise.
For primary markets, USA and such it will have more and more competition but in other parts of the world they'll be able to still license content until more mature infrastructure develops - netflix is #2 to CDN/cohosting in the world, right behind facebook.
Disney plus though, really getting up there with creative content and it's massive legacy of IP.
Google - Adtech, no problems there unfortunately, just more crappy internet. Apple - iPhones/Macbook and it's ecosystem is alive and well though revenue stream of app store could change in the future. Amazon - Infrastructure as a service, way better than Google, no problem here. Storefront is a minor part of it's business.
The others still have interesting tech that will unfold in disruptive ways, and that will be the big talent magnet for future engineers.
Google can take a lot of criticism for being relatively complacent and without much visible innovation lately, but they'll coast on Google Workspaces (G Suite), search/advertising, and their OS marketshare just like Microsoft did for decades. They have ample time to make and correct mistakes. I've also noticed that whatever products their intense focus is on often see rapid, high quality improvements (like when Google Meet development accelerated after the pandemic started).
Facebook could go either way. It owns Instagram, of course, and I think they know the social media business well. WhatsApp will never go anywhere, it's entrenched. They're big enough to copy novel new social media ideas quickly. A highlight is that they truly are a leader in VR, and the Oculus Quest is clearly a hit in that category. If VR and AR truly become big businesses (skeptical on that but we'll see), Facebook will be growing.
I can't see Amazon declining due to their dominance as a logistics company for everything. They can become truly awful any everyone will just keep using Amazon.com and AWS.
I don't know if this is a bold prediction, a safe prediction, or just one that will get me accused of being a fanboy, but in this list think Apple is the least likely player to decline in the years ahead. They have shown time and time again that they have good management in place that has a long-term vision in mind. A lot of people say that Steve Jobs was the greatest and Apple isn't the same anymore, but they've taken advantage of every possible high margin business with their newest products in the post-Steve Jobs era. Apple Watch with its accessory ecosystem (like $400 Hermes watch bands), headphones and audio, and all the subscription services.
Whilst it hasn’t yet exploded in user growth, I’d disagree with this. Signal and telegram and others have outmaneuvered WhatsApp on features several times now (eg signal had gifs and emoji reactions, not sure if whatsapp even does yet?)
Once you get over the network effect hurdle (no small feat), the switch is frictionless.
The three big zeitgeists right now are: AR/VR, Metaverse, and Crypto. By this measure:
Amazon is very strong. This is a company that achieved unreal fulfillment numbers during a world-stopping global pandemic that brought their peers to their knees. Yet they only control single-digit percentages of US commerce. They're a company that doesn't just make empty promises about next-gen tech like drone delivery or same-day fulfillment or "supply chain hardening"; they deliver (literally) and are deploying this tech today.
Google is strong. Google is the ghost in the information machine. Ten years ago everyone was so concerned about how competitors could disrupt their control in search, maps, video, etc. No one has. If they have eyes, they will find a way to monetize it. Combine that with their slow but methodical push into B2B, between Workspace & Cloud, and I'm not concerned about them.
Netflix is stable. Piracy will be an issue as these platforms shard more and more good content between different subscriptions, but I also think its a self-fixing problem. We're in a period of striation, and we'll soon enter a period of coalescing; Netflix & Disney+ are very well positioned to survive and continue to do well.
Apple is weak. iPhone is flat. Mac is flat. iPad is flat. Their biggest wins over the past decade have been on the accessory side (Watch & AirPods). AR can either be a "metaverse platform", which will stumble to see "next-iPhone success" because Apple doesn't play well with other children and loves their gardens, or it could be "another accessory", which will also stumble because that's not a trillion dollar business.
Facebook is very weak. The metaverse stuff will probably pay off to some degree, but their biggest gain will be on the hardware side. They just won't be able to produce the same kind of open digital universe that video-game native competitors in this space (like Epic) have spent years preparing for. They aren't a video game company, and that's the skillset this takes.
Quest was one of the best selling holiday gifts this year, and the companion app even hit #1 in the iOS App Store (over IG, TikTok, etc.)[1]. FB the app may be slowing growth, but AR/VR seems poised to be the next major computing platform - and mainstream adoption shares this sentiment. It’s fine to wish for the company’s demise, but arguing that they’re ready to fail seems foolish.
[1] https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/metaverse...
Netflix is the only one I consider "innocent" however their market segment as a whole deserves a kicking for pushing us back towards the cable TV model.
I have historically been very anti Apple but the M1 is impressive, as is their attitude to privacy. Not such a good look on the working culture front though.
Google and Amazon are both toxic to some extent, while being so good as to be indispensable to a majority of their customers. For Google that is B2C, for Amazon (and Microsoft, who deserve inclusion here), that is B2B. On balance I expect stasis for all 3.
Having Facebook decline all the way out of existence would give me hope for humanity, but I don't see it happening.
Google, for SE reasons.
I’ve never had as many issues with F/OSS projects than I’ve had with Google’s open source projects. Whenever I need a bug fixed I tell my girlfriend “I’m about to be treated like I’m dumb in a bug tracker.” It’s usually basic functionality that was documented years ago but never actually functioned properly. The fix is usually done behind closed doors by a Google employee in 1-n months and tossed back over the wall. Very little space for a non-Googler to contribute and employee maintainers seem to leave often.
The documentation structure used across projects is non-sensical as well. No next/prev, just “related” links. They actually brag about the doc process in their software engineering book.
Ok, I'm also probably wrong about Facebook, but I so want to be right! :-)
What if they miss?
It feels weird to say this but I'm still wearily rooting for them.
Bonus- I think that Microsoft is least likely to decline. Just look at that stock trend line.
Of this list, Netflix is the only obvious one that will see serious user loss. They had a great thing going for about 10 years until the pandemic knocked every Hollywood exec upside the head to realize that streaming is no longer optional. Netflix has been reduced almost entirely to their own content at this point as every other producer is running their own service now. And Netflix original content is... spotty at best.
Every social media company that optimizes for "engagement" (which means addictiveness and the promotion of polarizing and triggering content) is part of the problem but Facebook is probably the largest player here.
These companies are making billions off the collective lobotomization of humanity.
All I see is a huge bet on the yet undefined metaverse and declining interest in their current products. I wouldn't predict a quick death, but a drawn out descent in to obscurity.
And to broaden the question: I don't know where Twitter is off to. It is a miserable place but it fills a well defined niche and there's no competition. While I see Microsoft outlasting humanity. There is no way they'll go down before everything else does first.
Agree that (very) long term they'll need the VR/AR market to take off and capture a significant portion of that to stay on top of the digital ad business along with Google.
The fact that they're taking their least popular product, VR, and making that their main focus, seems to show they're not resting on their laurels.
Apple has its own ecosystem and cult. It's safe for the time being.
Google owns advertising, the major mobile OS and search. Anyway all of them could be offered separately in a better way. Advertising and search are easier to overturn than Android.
Facebook is hated but is owns messaging outside Apple's boundary. Network effects protect them but network effects could destroy it as quickly as they built FB's lead.
Netflix can be overturned by any competitor with a cheaper plan.
These are my votes in reverse order.
I feel like every generation has had their list of companies to be "lifers" at. There was Bell Labs, HP, IBM in a past generation. Then there was Google and Apple in a newer generation. Then there was Netflix, Facebook, AWS, etc. Right now, there are none! Who will start the next one, and avoid it becoming one from my list?
Netflix, on the other hand, has no real competitive advantage at this point except being the oldest streaming service with a good brand.
Google is too big and too diverse to fail.
Amazon's Cloud computing is going strong, still the dominant eBook platform and now dominant audiobook platform, plus retail.
Apple's margins are always good. They don't need to do anything different.
When Microsoft and IBM didn't fall after a decade of bad decision making I've lost faith in "no one is too big to fail".
Interesting that Microsoft has missed out on being a FAANG (is this just because we cant make the acronym work?) .... they are much more significant than Netflix
Your statement only makes sense if time was invariant.
Thinking of things this way, Netflix is the odd one out and most likely to fail, because I reluctantly engage with products from those other brands everyday. And I suspect everyone else does too.
Google and Facebook are definitely stagnating and burning money on expanding (unsuccessfully) outside of the advertising duopoly they have.
Netflix is in the unfortunate position of battling against the established and increasingly technically competent entertainment industry and the technically competent and better funded tech industry.
I realize Facebook isn’t very popular right now, but all I see usually is people talking about how bad Facebook is, while the browse their Instagram and talk on messenger.
Not saying you can’t hate the company for what it is, but seems like so many people are calling for the end of Facebook while being it’s most dedicated users.
(1) Apple 2.98T (2) Microsoft 2.51T (3) Alphabet (Google) 1.92T (5) Amazon 1.72T (7) Meta (Facebook) 941B ... (35) Netflix 264B
Source: https://companiesmarketcap.com/
Don't use this stupid acronym then.
They depend on hits and one hit does not guarantee a follow up hit.
Like any film production company or games company, if they start repeatedly investing into big budget content that bombs, they will rapidly run into trouble.
Amazon - $1.5 trillion
Netflix - $260 billion
Apple - $3 trillion
Google - $2 trillion
Facebook - $1 trillion
Anyone who thinks facebook (i.e. meta) is going to drop can buy put options. the $150 put 2 years out is selling for $5 so if you buy 100 for $50K - When the stock falls you will have enough money to buy a house
Google in turn will be split into smaller segments.
As I no longer use their products, and I feel nothing changed.
If we see any decline, which is unlikely, it would probably be facebook or netflix in my opinion. Tiktok is bigger than facebook right now and they have a very bad reputation. Maybe they will make it big with the metaverse thing, but it's a huge gamble.
OTOH, if they keep producing enough of their own content, that is good enough, they might keep me around. For example, if they come out with another show as good as, say, Bojack Horseman, every so often then I would likely keep my subscription.
Time will tell, I suppose.
Any product that Facebook makes produces -99% of value for humanity.
Unless of course pushing buttons on an orange site is going to change things...