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Comment by gmays | Hacker News Reader

Same. I've also bought Affirm, Shopify, Netflix, Peloton and Roblox in addition to Coinbase since they've all dropped ~70-90% in the last 6 months. I agree they were overvalued, but we seem to be in overreaction territory now. Even if we haven't seen the bottom yet, I think we'll see a lot of upside in these over the next 2-5 years.

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Netflix really seems like a loser to me. Every production company has a streaming service now, and most make better content than Netflix. Sure Netflix’s app might be better, but it’s also twice as expensive as every other service. I guess that Netflix’s “replace basic cable” package might work for people who only want one service, but from what I remember most people did not especially like basic cable. Wouldn’t be surprised if Netflix is gone in 20 years.

Is netflix really aiming to “replace basic cable”? Seems more like replace hbo and a couple of random other channels. The price is outrageous, but I feel like we are getting to the point where market penetration involves business deals where a fraction of the sub is covered by someone else (carrier, credit card, etc).

Look at the number of shows they produce compared to other services. On mobile so not going to link, but easy enough to find. Pretty clear to me that their strategy is to have a show for everyone’s favorite niche. Compare that to HBO where the strategy is to create shows that are actually good. 90% of Netflix is crap, and that’s not to say they don’t make good shows, they just make so many bad ones.

This is Apple TV+ strategy too. Though there have still been some expensive looking clunkers.

They're also kinda the Google of TV in my mind too at this point

No point getting into a Netflix original, it won't make it to s02

Should have probably given some evidence or whatever rather than appearing butthurt

Admittedly this list includes shows that have ended in addition to those that were cancelled. Those will mostly have more than one season. Pinch of salt.

src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ended_Netflix_original...

HBO never had the low good content/crap ratio that Netflix has.

Agreed. Netflix’s only option at this point is to merge with a large IP holder meaning Paramount (formerly ViacomCBS).

Netflix was not as aggressive as they needed to be in locking down must-see brands to 1) keep subscribers or 2) better negotiate with the content players.

Well it turns out a lot of the big players own huge swaths of IP and ramping up a streaming service is a lot less hard. Netflix tried to build a moat with it's own movies, but I guess so did the Hallmark channel

Netflix also tried to be more PC than PC and drove a lot of mainstream viewers away. Perhaps they thought being over the top in culture wars would be their moat? Or perhaps they were just drinking koolaid?

Executives at Netflix should have known their stock was overvalued and used it as leverage in acquiring other companies with 100% stock. $300 billion was a lot of money they could have used.

I was saying this 6 months ago on Twitter and was saying it here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29787420

In hindsight stock performance was the biggest advantage they had over competitors, now they have to compete with companies with bigger catalogs and more cash flow (e.g. disney parks)

> Affirm

A credit firm whose customer base is primarily folks who have to finance their small ticket item purchases in order to afford them is going to have a tough time in a rising interest rate environment. Their margins will compress as their cost of capital rises, and their default rate will rise as their borrowers slowly approach insolvency in a recessionary environment. I would be cautious about investing in anyone who is lending to borrowers who don't have sterling credit and/or strong balance sheets and durable cashflows this late in the cycle.

I honestly believe that stock is headed to $0 and may de-list. disclosure: may short it

they might have rejected my application a few years ago.

> borrowers slowly approach insolvency

These are 4 week loans, exposure to any given customer is small. And in a recession demand for these loans will increase.

Their loan terms are typically 3, 6, 9, or 12 months. They’re not profitable and had $379 million in operating losses last year. Whether consumers ramp their demand for this product, which the data shows is overwhelmingly utilized for discretionary purchases such as fast fashion and their accessories, electronics, and digital goods, remains to be seen.

> 43% of Gen Z users have missed at least one payment, according to a survey by the polling site Piplsay. Of Gen Z consumers who used a point-of-sale loan for something they needed, 30% missed at least two payments, according to a survey by Credit Karma.

https://helpcenter.affirm.com/s/article/term-lengths

https://investors.affirm.com/news-releases/news-release-deta...

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/influencers-lead-Gen-Z-i...

I was mistaken about the loan term, I assumed they were typical "pay in 4" loans. That does sound quite bad.

Peloton is headed the way of GoPro. They were a pandemic fad for folks stuck in their homes and now you can't get rid of them on FB Marketplace etc.

I'm not sure they care too much how much their bikes earn on resale as long as they get new owners, even if people give them away for free they earn money when those new Peloton owners subscribe at $40/month.

Wait, why would anyone pay $40/month to use an exercise bike they already bought?

Am I stupid? Or is the world stupid?

They have training programs or some such, you pay them like you'd pay a gym subscription.

It seems strange to me, but people do this with random online fitness classes, so it's not unheard of.

You can pedal the bike without a subscription, but you don't get any metrics tracking (you can't even pair it with your watch or iPad), and you don't get any of the interactive classes that most people buy the bike for. I pair my spin bike with my watch so I can track my workouts and performance, so would be pretty unhappy with a bike where I couldn't do that or at least see biking stats online like you can with the Peloton app.

But if you have the Peloton Tread treadmill, it's even worse, you literally can't use it without a subscription due to a new "safety feature".

So I'm actually in on PTON right now and feeling some pain, but what made it click for me was that the bike was completely unusable without a subscription.

At this point, returns and people just burning/destroying their Pelotons are the only risk.

In addition two things made me think about it:

- The kind of people who buy pelotons are usually not the people who worry about that amount of monthly charge and may keep it aspirationally

- The new game they put out (kind of guitar hero-y) actually doesn't look half bad, and the product itself is quite polished.

- In addition to buying the bike, people often buy one or two pairs of clip in cycling shoes -- Peloton could actually start becoming a go to for riding gear and have quite the audience to sell to from day one.

Anxious to read their recent earnings report tomorrow.

what made it click for me was that the bike was completely unusable without a subscription

That's why I went with a Keiser bike instead of Peloton, it was the same price for the bike, but no subscription needed, and I can easily use it with any spinning app. Plus I didn't like having a big expensive display on the bike, the Keiser has a simple 4 line LCD display.

I like the Peloton instructors, so I subscribe to the Peloton service, but I only pay $13/month for it (which makes the $40/mo they charge to Peloton bike owners seem like even more of a ripoff). I track my workouts with my watch, so if they raise the price too much, I'm not tied at all to Peloton and I'll just switch to another service.

Thanks for sharing, this makes a lot of sense, it looks like peloton has another win in the interior department but clearly less of a moat in the hardware department.

I think you’re more of a power user (and willing to tolerate set up pain) than most of the customer base would be, but how easily you’ve found a solution and competitor that works well with your method has been eye opening

> - The kind of people who buy pelotons are usually not the people who worry about that amount of monthly charge and may keep it aspirationally

I think this is a very limited market that may be getting close to saturation. Most people don’t want to spend $40 a month to own a bike

Yeah I don't disagree with you there (I don't own one)

A bit more of my very basic reasoning was that at current prices the company was being as if it hadn't shown progress at all in the last ~2 years. They have at least sold units, added subscribers, and that's gotta be worth something even if a bunch of it is pulled forward.

Actually for a SaaS service (we'll leave aside whether it's worth it or not :), this is one of the best things that could happen right? If possible you want that LTV to be pulled forward so you can try to reinvest it in the business or make moves earlier rather than later?

Personally, I'm all in on exactly the Vanguard funds I was all in on last month.

I did sell my crypto, which would've been a better story if I had more than $1000 of it.

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