Hacker News Reader

Comment by ig1 | Hacker News Reader

To quote Paul Graham: "Just as trying to think up startup ideas tends to produce bad ones, working on things that could be dismissed as "toys" often produces good ones. When something is described as a toy, that means it has everything an idea needs except being important. It's cool; users love it; it just doesn't matter. But if you're living in the future and you build something cool that users love, it may matter more than outsiders think."

To put into context, how much do you think a telco company with 26 million US customers is worth ?

If Snapchat is displacing text and calls as the medium of transient communication of the next generation, it could feasibly end up being worth a substantial amount.

(My personal opinion is that it's over-valued; but it's important that someone makes the reasoned counter-argument)

View on HN

"To put into context, how much do you think a telco company with 26 million US customers is worth ? If Snapchat is displacing text and calls as the medium of transient communication of the next generation, it could feasibly end up being worth a substantial amount."

But things aren't as "sticky" as they used to be. You used to have to rent your phone from the telco, and you had no alternative providers. Today, users can drop their telco carrier and switch to a variety of alternatives - bring their number with them, or switch to VOIP altogether and keep similar functionality without a noticeable loss of functionality. The same is true for the app of the moment. Maybe it'll be hot for awhile, but the barrier to entering the marketplace is so dramatically reduced that it's difficult to see the same type of longevity from today's companies that you've seen from the previous generation of big businesses.

You captured my sentiments better than I could above.

Virtually no barriers to switch apps + young generations being raised in an environment of reduced fear when switching.

>> To put into context, how much do you think a telco company with 26 million US customers is worth?

26 million free users vs 26 million customers paying $50-100 a month is apples and oranges.

On the other hand, from the article: "As long as I can sell it to someone else for more in six months, who cares what it's really worth?" It might be argued that it's "really worth" whatever you can sell it for. It's not crazy to buy a baseball card for $100 if you can sell it for $150. Why is stock different, except that it's more volatile?

The difference being, surely, that Snapchat has 26million users, not 26million customers.

That said, it may very well be worth $4billion, or north thereof. The article concedes that it's difficult to speculate from the outside (and thus labels it "insane"), but fails to concede the simple point that it may be entirely justified.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com