SoftBank expects $24B in losses from Vision Fund, WeWork and OneWeb

Re:SoftBank expects $24B in losses from Vision Fund, WeWork ... by Spivak on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @06:25PM (#22872241)

I mean this kind of "tech" really only has one trick: demand stimulation. Don't get me wrong it's a good trick. Facebook and Google are making a killing by doing it.

The idea is just to prove that latent demand for dog walking exists and what's holding it back is the fact that people who would pay for this service don't know how to find someone to do it. Not the craziest idea. There's plenty of stuff that I would gladly pay for if I had any idea how to find someone selling it.

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Re:SoftBank expects $24B in losses from Vision Fund, WeWork ... by variaga on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @07:10PM (#22872583)

Let's say the latent demand is there - once I've found a dog walker through Wag, why wouldn't the walker and I cut out Wag and spilt that 10% between the two of us?

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Re:SoftBank expects $24B in losses from Vision Fund, WeWork ... by valzam on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @07:32PM (#22872733)

Nothing, which is the problem with all of these uber-for-x platforms. For anything that happens on a regular schedule the intermediary will be squeezed out rather sooner than later.

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Re:SoftBank expects $24B in losses from Vision Fund, WeWork ... by yellow_postit on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @01:32AM (#22874844)

Yup every contact we have made through HomeAdvisor, Porch, etc just leaves us their details and a cheaper rate. Churn+New users is clearly non-zero but seems smaller than the valuations suggest.

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