Re:VCs are scared when they should be greedy
by JumpCrisscross on Wednesday July 20, 2022 @05:43PM
(#32172787)
I agree with the premise. Success is never immortal. The gap, however, is in societies being intended to be immortal. If you let companies run amok, so the thinking goes, when goes the company so goes the country. Limiting companies’ power let’s them creatively destroy one another without threatening the culture at large.
Re:VCs are scared when they should be greedy
by wyre on Wednesday July 20, 2022 @08:54PM
(#32174477)
I have an easier time seeing the fall of the US before I see the fall of Amazon.
Re:VCs are scared when they should be greedy
by bombcar on Wednesday July 20, 2022 @09:48PM
(#32174829)
Amazon would have to be eaten by a three-prong (or more) attack, but I could see it fall quite quickly.
AWS is probably the biggest moat they have, but not often what people think of by "Amazon".
Re:VCs are scared when they should be greedy
by etempleton on Wednesday July 20, 2022 @11:41PM
(#32175506)
Amazon has really good diversification, and they aren’t going away anytime. Look at IBM, they still exist after decades of being essential irrelevant.
Re:VCs are scared when they should be greedy
by bombcar on Wednesday July 20, 2022 @11:52PM
(#32175589)
It takes an awful lot to actually kill a company (often fraud or similar), but a company that is no longer dominant the same way is usually considered to have "died". Myspace still exists, but Facebook is clearly the one to beat in that sector.
If Amazon retreats to being AWS-only, I'll consider them to have "failed", even if AWS continues to be a success.
Re:VCs are scared when they should be greedy
by dinvlad on Wednesday July 20, 2022 @08:27PM
(#32174275)
I think the silver lining is at the time of their peak Sears etc. seemed unstoppable. And it took only a few decades for that to be undone. And that is basically guaranteed to happen to any behemoth simply by their inertia and inability to stay relevant for a long time.
My prediction is that every behemoth of today will be tomorrow's Sears Roebuck, GE, West India Trading Company, etc. At some point, they'll become mired in bureaucracy. Enough incompetence will eventually rise to the top to allow competitors to pounce.
I'd bet on that, if I had to.
That said, I may easily be wrong, and I honestly share your concern about Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, etc.
In particular, I want a successful OSS phone competitor to Apple and Google. I don't think something as important as our telecommunication devices should be run by a duopoly. There's no freedom in the phone market the way there is in the PC market, and I'd really like to see that change.