I'd love to see an analysis of the risk embedded in the future profits that everyone talks about. What these analyses completely ignore is that Amazon's future cash flows are risky, while the current cashflows at the dying business are not.

There are countless examples of giant companies that haven't realized the enormous future cashflows embedded in their stock prices. It is obvious that Amazon generates lots and lots of revenue, no one disagrees with that. What remains an open question is will they be able to ease off of massive infrastructure investment and actually harness the future profitability that everyone seems certain of at this point.

These straw man arguments that profit-less companies have huge market caps so they will turn hugely profitable ignores the actual argument of whether they can actually achieve that. Can profit does not equal will profit.