Predatory pricing catching up with them.
Saved you a click.
this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Did you ever know that you're my hero?
And they’ll still overpay themselves while making consumers and lower employees suffer. Consumers get shittier service and employees get shitty pay, longer hours, more demands…If they don’t get laid off.
More like:
Predatory pricing
exists.
Don't hold your breath waiting for anything to catch up to the 1%. To be honest, I don't know the average person even really want it to. I mean, suppose I use Uber. Am I really going to be out there writing letters to my congresscritter pressuring them to force Uber to stop selling their product below cost and consequently make my Uber rides significantly more expensive? "Oh man, I sure wish Amazon would stop selling me such cheap products with next day shipping. This problem needs to be fixed, they're hurting the free market!"
Eventually the frog might get boiled, but that's some time in the future. The frog is feeling comfy now.
That's sad. I couldn't imagine bragging to the world about how I have no moral spine and will suck off whichever slaver gives me the comfiest servants' quarters, at least not without turning it into a parable about how I got disillusioned
I couldn’t imagine bragging to the world about how I have no moral spine and will suck off
You realize I'm speaking generally, right?
In fact, I've never once used Uber or Lyft in my entire life. My point is that the average person isn't going to push for something that has a tangible negative effect right now to possible make things better in the murky future.
Now I could say: Well, the rabble sucks but I on the other hand am a cut above the rest. I'm one of the few who is willing to make the tough choices and endure whatever sacrifices are necessary to Do What's Right. But hey, talk is cheap so what's the point really? I guess if I'd added a bit about how special and great I am (it's true!) I might have avoided having my fellating skills become part of the discussion.
The point of it is ro share your experience and show it can be done to the "rabble" who would otherwise go "welp, it sure sucks... but what you gonna do?"
The point of it is ro share your experience and show it can be done to the “rabble”
There's nothing to figure out in the "how" part though. It's just a question of the person having the motivation to make personal sacrifices with tangible effects in the present for a less tangible benefit in the future.
Saying how I'd be the exception in this case seems more like boasting than really doing something constructive. That's not my style.
Venture investing is the answer to the question of what would happen if you staffed a bank's loan department with adrenaline junkies.
Well, no. When a bank extends a loan, it knows the upper limit on how much money it can make from that loan. It might make less, if the debtor ends up defaulting on the loan; but it can't make more.
In venture investing, the upside is unbounded. The company might go to zero, but it might become the next Google; and the venture investor gets to own a fraction of that.
"new research" here translates roughly to "information known for over half a century".
"Information known for half a century that nevertheless didn't mean jack squat because it couldn't be legally explained in such a way that would convince a layman court to break past precedent; but that we've now reframed into a compelling interpretation that much more obviously meets the standards required for a court to rule something as 'predatory pricing''; thus, any future cases brought are much more likely to succeed."
tldr: We think we've found a way around the technicality VCs have been hiding behind all these years.
Where Wansley and Weinstein break important new ground is on the other legal standard set by the Supreme Court: recoupment of losses. If Uber and WeWork and the rest of the unicorns are perpetual money losers, it sounds like the standard isn't met. But Wansley and Weinstein point out that it can be — even if the companies never earn a dime and even if everyone who invests in the companies, post-IPO, loses their bets. That's because the venture capitalists who seeded the company do profit from the predatory pricing. They get in, get a hefty return on their investment, and get out before the whole scheme collapses.
Yep. The venture capitalists found a loophole.
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Summary: “oh no, startups are risky”.
that is absolutely not summary of the article
This article's blow-off strikes me as a little too Pollyanna to be believed:
The same kind of aha! light that went off for Wansley during his interview with the Lyft executive could start to go off for other people as well. Some of them will be investors who decide not to park their money in predatory tech companies. And some of them, perhaps, will be government regulators who are looking for ways to bust our modern-day trusts.