Hacker News Reader

Pinterest's potential market is much, much bigger than Github's will ever be.

So? If I create a product that gives everyone in the world free power my market would be huge, problem is, this product would be founded on the premise that one day I'll work out how to cover the huge cost of generating enough power to satisfy the world's desires. A much more reputable way to start a power company would be to charge for one's services at a point where MR > MC, but that's just me.

Clearly free-to-air TV must be worthless too.

And I guess you think Newspaper profits (used to) come from the price people pay for them.

Underneath your sarcasm, I believe your point is that these models were sustained by paid advertising, thus Pinterest could become profitable by following the same model.

The cost of ads has plummeted in the last few years, and I seriously doubt Pinterest would remain profitable if its primary revenue stream is ads.

Untargetted advertising has always been cheap to buy, and worth roughly the same amount.

Google's search advertising has shown targeted advertising is one of the most profitable business models ever. In some ways Pinterest is even more targeted than search.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com