Streaming was a mistake

[u/untitledprp4]

[u/flopisit32]

Reddit refuses to ever understand economics.

Things cost what people are willing to pay for them. If nobody was buying their shit, they would be charging lower prices.

[u/gagnatron5000 → u/flopisit32]

Why are people booing you? You're right.

Also, a classic business model lately has been to sell a product at an unbelievable value, almost losing money, then once you have dominant market share of the product you're selling, you raise the price as high as the market will possibly allow. It's how Amazon did it, it's how Netflix did it, it's how almost any tech startup does it, and it's we're currently seeing the price markup stage with AI companies.

[u/Sir_Badtard → u/gagnatron5000]

That was Ubers whole thing.

A taxi wants to charge you $25 for a ride?

We will do it for $6.

In places that taxis don't even really exist you'd be lucky to get an Uber anywhere for under $40 now.

[u/Headpuncher → u/Sir_Badtard]

That’s illegal in some countries because it’s considered a con for consumers.  

[u/rightoftexas → u/Sir_Badtard]

So Uber operates where taxis don't and you're complaining that it's too expensive? I wonder why taxis don't exist there.

[u/rightoftexas → u/[deleted]]

I get it, they're offering a better service for a similar price. And we're discussing where taxis don't operate.

[u/Sir_Badtard → u/rightoftexas]

I missed a word. I was saying where taxis don't exist anymore. My B.

[u/gagnatron5000 → u/Sir_Badtard]

Uber, Grubhub, Zocdoc, Airbnb, they're all the same business model.

[u/Nyx_Shadowspawn → u/Sir_Badtard]

It was Walmart's whole thing too. Put all the little shops out of business, then jack up the prices.

[u/47gwen → u/Sir_Badtard]

so you’re just straight up lying, Uber is only $40 if you’re trying to go to the airport or something.

[u/Salt_Data3707 → u/Sir_Badtard]

"Burn and build" aka predatory pricing

[u/samxli → u/Salt_Data3707]

From the founders perspective: pump and dump

[u/Greedyanda → u/Salt_Data3707]

The misuse of the term "predatory" has become a plague recently. It is now devoid of any meaning because of it.

[u/Salt_Data3707 → u/Greedyanda]

What uber did to taxis is the exact definition of predatory pricing?

[u/TRIPMINE_Guy → u/gagnatron5000]

The difference is there is no such thing as dominant market share for video content since youtube exists and any other streaming platform. Jacking up prices after the fact does not lock consumers into accepting it because they have no choice, they can just go watch other stuff.

[u/killerboy_belgium → u/gagnatron5000]

not almost losing actually losing money

netflix,disney lost money on there platform for years disney started making money around 2024 before that they lost money

prime is hard to gauge becomes its bundle with other things with free shipping and stuff

apple has so far only lost money on there streaming service

HBO+ started becoming profitable in 2023

but all these platforms are facing huge price increase as datacenter space and hardware is going to the moon because of AI so i suspect they will have the increase prices even more to cover those costs

[u/AnCapGamer → u/gagnatron5000]

The only reason that works is because in a Cronyist state you can also lobby for "regulations" that favor pre-established large-scale actors with economies of scale over less-established market actors, thus price your competitors out of the market.

In a less-regulated market space, this would cost you more and buy you less - which would be a significant enough difference over time to make it a temporary market strategy rather than a permanent one.

Not saying that people wouldn't still DO it (they would) or that it wouldn't succeed (it would to some extent), but it wouldn't be able to buy you "effective pseudo-monopoly" status forever the way it can now.