switch11

talking to potential customers and users about product market fit

is not a given it will work

Making a product based on your experience of a market - 25% chance it works out (of which 5% chance it will become a big company)

To that, even after talking to customers

you are only taking it to 30% chance it works out, and of which 7% chance it will become a big company

*

your hypothesis is based on data points

hopefully things like actual experience in the market

market research

seeing what sells

seeing what doesn't sell

*

Customers and users are just as likely to give you bad data (of what they THINK they will buy) or impractical data (something that benefits them and doesn't benefit you)

It only adds a few percentage points to your likelihood of success

on the other hand - seeing what customers actually BUY and SPEND ON, that has a lot of value

However, even that is a piece of the puzzle, and not the solution

This is extremely well put

-> You raise money, you build something, and then you have a limited time to see whether your hypothesis about the market was correct. Often, if not most of the time, you fail to get the fit you need in order to succeed.

A lot of people will try to counter it

However, that is REALLY what it comes down to

we have a HYPOTHESIS about the market. A product that we think will win/succeed/do well

The Market Always Wins

It either accepts your product (your hypothesis was correct, or became correct by the time you launch your product)

or it rejects your product

can anyone add to that article data on

What users saw in terms of response time

and perceived response time

And what users are seeing after the improvements

*

We had evaluated spotify for one of our projects and aesthetically it is really good. However, time wise their store takes forever to do stuff

This was a couple of years back, so hopefully things are much better now

Basically, the article covers how much better THE TEAM doing the coding feels

What is the effect on the users using the stores?

very good point

very good example

this guy writes some of the BEST publishing related articles

love that he is discussing this

Amazon used to have a sliding royalty scales going all the way up to 90% for audiobooks

Then 4/5 years back they made some excuses and changed to 40%

* People keep targeting Amazon for anti trust in areas like retail where it is hard to prove because Amazon keeps using defence of 'cheaper for customer'

why not target them for anti trust in areas they have domination to a larger extent and where they actually do blatant anti trust which leads to higher prices for readers i.e.

Audiobooks - giving creators only 40% cut instead of earlier up to 90%

ebooks - forcing exclusivity. How is it not anti trust if the largest ebook company in the US (60% market share) says to self published authors - give us exclusivity and get 65% of book sales. OR don't give us exclusivity and get only 35%

This is very true

what they fear most is

Instagram and Whatsapp getting split up from Facebook

And then it becoming a contest of

FB vs Instagram Vs Whatsapp

If they integrate them in, then they get two good side effects (the real intended effectS) in addition to 'easier for users'

A) Very hard to split it up, as it 'breaks the experience for the users

B) After the split the three companies are FORCED TO WORK TOGETHER

it becomes three companies sharing three shared products

*

Another fact that has to be considered is

A lot of Instagram's growth was done leveraging what was learnt at Facebook and using Facebook users

Now you get the danger that

The three companies (if split - FB, Instagram, Whatsapp) could feed and grow competitors to each other

By having them so interconnected, it also prevents one company to 'build in' a possible competitor to another and grow it quickly

yeah, it is super funny

have to feel bad for the guy

he basically was taking over the world

And now he's getting kicked out of the biggest market on the planet

this is beautifully put: Arbitrary action such as this is a sign of weakness: of economic weakness, and the fear to no longer be good enough to be the single biggest winner of free trade the US was for most of the 20th century.

agreed 100%

Google revenue is slowly going down

Only option for Google is to pretend Internet doesn't exist

Anyone who is using Adwords or doing Search Engine Optimization

look at what results look like

It's 50% to 70% traffic being routed to Google

remaining being routed mostly to people who pay a lot to Adwords

*

It's almost purely Pay to Play now in most of the lucrative areas

This theory scares the heck out of people who currently control media and TV because it is very well structured

it asks people to go to (in a weird sort of way) first principles and start from there

*

Why is bitcoin so scary? Because it completely removes CENTRAL CONTROL

even more so - it removes the need to TRUST a central bank

*

QAnon is similar. If you read the precepts of it, it is written by someone who believes that the entire current mindset is INCULCATED and INDOCTRINATED by people through brainwashing in high school and college

Which is an especially effective way to position yourself because then people have to question

ARe my beliefs based on FIRST PRINCIPLES i.e.

If I start with a blank slate and build on that using non-disputable facts

would it lead to what the mass media is saying?

And then they see - OK, Mass Media is lying

Now, what is the truth

at this point it doesn't even amtter if QAnon is the truth or not

The victory is already won

one brainwashed person suddenly recognizes they are brainwashed

agreed with all your points

the author of the article is basically writing - I'm too lazy to use alternatives

she is cementing her laziness by taking THE EXACT SAME ARTICLE She wrote a few years ago and recycling it

This is a stupid article

1) Many people don't use the tech giants and get by just fine

2) Actual tough stuff is getting by without the currently dominant Operating Systems for desktop and mobile and Office Software

THAT takes us some work

Also the AWS employee talking about 'Amazon and Google as the providers of the very infrastructure of the world' is absolutely ridiculous

There are a ton of cloud providers and in many countries Google and Amazon don't even have much presence

a conspiracy theory is not 'something that has been proven to not be true'

Snowden's leak is a good example of something that proved a lot of conspiracy theories to be true

someone needs to give you an award

EVERYONE here claiming 'just move your product online' and 'sales have doubled for people who moved online'

do not understand the nature of competition online

You have to be Top 1% online to survive

Top 0.1% to thrive

In the real world you can be the third best coffee shop or t shirt shop in your locality and still do well

this is super true:

The parasitic elite (in the US) have CRUSHED the working class by ensuring that entering the middle class is as difficult as possible, while the middle class have largely used property to boost themselves into their own generational wealth. The inflation has been due to US debt, which comes from Military spending, QE, etc. The public market has been dominated by large brands who have a slew of predatory practices (looking at you JPM Chase, Apple, Bank of America, etc). NIMBY policies (by the newly elevated middle class, clutching their pearls) and work centralization in dense urban settings, has hurt the whole situation...but there's hope with Covid, ironically. That's what I believe based on my own observation (and experience).

this is an excellent example

Wonder what percentage of the people who are claiming 'Google is not in the wrong here' actually read the article/deposition

he talks about a lot of stuff

agreed 100%

We went through something very similar

where Google 'disappeared' an entire category of apps from the App Store because one of our competitor/friend companies in the same area as us was growing very fast

That guy started talking about adding thousands of new users a day. Within 2 weeks Google had removed ALL (every single one) apps in that category

Also this is a search vertical. So it's the very definition of anti trust

*

anyways, it's good that people are talking about this

only caste Ambani believes in is money caste

At a superficial level - yes

Both grew up in India before migrating to US so understand India very well

In reality

Sundar Pichai - no

Satya Nadella - yes. This guy is a @#$#$ genius. And Indians have a lot of respect for smart people who deliver results

So, Indian Goverment is not owned by Reliance

However, all things being equal Indian Government would prefer an Indian company like Reliance owns the keys to the kingdom, rather than some imperialist cunt like Bezos or Zuckerberg

So now these imperialist companies have no choice but to team up with Reliance

Bezos' plans in India are screwed, though, by the way

WalMart/Flipkart was good competition and still #1

However, JioMart is basically as vicious and happy to do illegal things as Bezos and he has all the connections in India

So India can be written off completely for Amazon retail

Bezos' only choice now is to partner with Ambani as a small stakeholder

support this 100%

if you do your due diligence companies like Reliance (Dhirubhai Ambani) are the reason most honest smart Indians are fleeing the country

From things like bribing the government at city and state levels, to 'disappearing competitors' to going after competitors with the sole purpose of killing them off

Of course, now with what is happening with TikTok you could argue US is fast becoming the same

you can just buy Government influence instead of having to compete

hats off to Facebook for being absolutely shameless and zero ethics

they don't even pretend to be honest (unlike Google) and it's a miracle so far they haven't had to pay damages for all the 'inspiration' they have found from other people's products

As you go higher in revenue it goes down

I much prefer a company that takes a slightly higher percentage and provides a great service

than the @#$# at Paypal who will freeze your accounts for reasons like 'your earnings are growing too fast' or 'you compete with our fellow silicon valley company'

yeah,

this stuff i don't understand

People keeping giving Facebook and Google the benefit of the doubt

AT what point are people going to realize these are fundamentally dishonest and deceitful companies

Everyone other than Google - no data

Google - all the data

That's what this is

I'll just leave this bit of advice

Very few fortunes are lost by spending or excesses, they are mostly lost by bad investments and bad financial decisions

* It might be better to take your time and think long and hard before making any investment decisions

We are at a point of unbelievably crazy valuations and in the midst of a global pandemic

a lot of stuff is going to go tits up

anyone who has used Good Reads loves your comment

yes

there is one other factor that people are missing

there are over a million self published authors. They are all sending people to Amazon to buy books

Those book pages have ads for other stuff

The amount of money coming from that is not insignificant

To give you some idea. I know at least 4 people who were making $50,000+ a month from affiliate sales

Of course, most of them got screwed like all other affiliates

However, 90% of the money was from stuff other than what they were sending people to Amazon for

*

1 million authors, all desperate to get their books to readers, spending money on Facebook Ads and newspapers and radios

sending readers to Amazon

some variants had number keys

removed later

very bad decision

Some of the stuff they say are completely inaccurate

He claims Kindle as the first ereader to use an eInk screen

Sony ereader launched a YEAR before and had an eink screen

Also this guy seems to be a worshipper rather than an unbiased or somewhat objective observer

agreed 100% with you soapdog

anyone who works or partners with Amazon sooner or later wants ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with them

look back to the hearing (Anti Trust) - Jeff Bezos was telling his people to go after their partners like a panther goes after a wounder gazelle

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At least Microsoft waited until you became a big company to screw you over

Amazon starts looking to screw you over the minute you start making a couple million a year