Worldwide Markets Feel Jolt of Tencent's Epic $143 Billion Stock Crash

[riffraffy]

I want in on this data stealing money.

Who wants to make a Facebook ourselves? We need a catchy name though.

Nyet-Book.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Yes, buzzwords wont hold a company up forever. Eventually, you need to, you know, actually make money. Funds raised from VC and the stock market dont count, you need to be able to turn an actual profit, or investors will eventually jump ship while they can.

You say that, but Facebook is already 14 years old. It's not a trend. It's a longstanding, successful business, by any financial standards.

I also don't agree that they merely reinvented the wheel. I think that's massively selling short exactly how different the social media business model actually is to traditional business models.

Facebook's business model is practically wizardry - Take into account the following:

Product = Data
Price = User time investment
Sales = Number of users.

They've managed to create a circumstance where having more product increases it's price, increasing the price increases the sales, and increasing the sales increases the amount of product they actually have to sell in the first place. Every part of that is insane in a scarcity-based economy.

The only thing missing is actual dollars.

So where do the dollars come from? Well, all of this is financed by the fact that this is only the "Retail sales" side of their operation - the actual revenue stream for their business model is their Business To Business sales, where the price is determined by the amount of product available to sell, but the same product can be sold an infinite number of times, with a huge service charge tacked on in return for help actually using the product. Which is also insane.

I am not aware of any time in recorded history where it has actually been possible for a business to do anything remotely like this, and the fact Facebook have cornered the market using such a business model, that literally gets stronger over time solely by virtue of already being the strongest player in the market, is something that the world is, quite simply, not legally or even morally, equipped to handle in any way. It is utter madness, and at this stage, the only thing that can kill Facebook is Facebook, or legislation that outlaws what Facebook does.

How long was yahoo around before being enveloped into the folds of verizon? How about AOL?

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Facebook wont last forever, younger people are already leaving the platform in favor of other social media (some owned by facebook). Eventually ol' Zucky is going to either be ousted from his own company after enough screwups, or people will abandon the platform in favor of some other site, like myspace, AOL messenger, and yahoo messenger before it.

It may eventually become like AT&T, which has existed for many decades, but at the same time that company has gone through a lot, including a government breakup. Even if facebook survives, the current facebook as we know it will eventually be replaced from the inside out.

 

[StrayKAT]

Yes, buzzwords wont hold a company up forever. Eventually, you need to, you know, actually make money. Funds raised from VC and the stock market dont count, you need to be able to turn an actual profit, or investors will eventually jump ship while they can.

How long was yahoo around before being enveloped into the folds of verizon? How about AOL?

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Facebook wont last forever, younger people are already leaving the platform in favor of other social media (some owned by facebook). Eventually ol' Zucky is going to either be ousted from his own company after enough screwups, or people will abandon the platform in favor of some other site, like myspace, AOL messenger, and yahoo messenger before it.

It may eventually become like AT&T, which has existed for many decades, but at the same time that company has gone through a lot, including a government breakup. Even if facebook survives, the current facebook as we know it will eventually be replaced from the inside out.

Zuckerberg doesn't annoy me as much as the surrounding executives and hangers-on. Especially Sheryl Sandberg... who's taken seriously as some kind of icon or something. There's a lot of women in actual tech companies that deserve praise... moreso than someone who calls the shots at an analytics/advertising firm, at least.

AT&T is a legit tech company. They freaking invented UNIX and C... or their employees did. Along with the phone and transistor. We're still benefiting from them 50.. no 60.. no 70.. no wait, 100 years later. I hope to God that Facebook is dead 100 years from now. What the hell do even do that's so important.. or progresses humanity in a tangible way?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

What the hell do even do that's so important.. or progresses humanity in a tangible way?

Regresses, rather. How Using Social Media Affects Teenagers. Kids have never been more connected to each other but "the survey results found that Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all led to increased feelings of depression, anxiety, poor body image and loneliness." There's a plethora of research on children younger than teens too and none of it paints a pretty picture.

 

[StrayKAT]

Regresses, rather. How Using Social Media Affects Teenagers. Kids have never been more connected to each other but "the survey results found that Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all led to increased feelings of depression, anxiety, poor body image and loneliness." There's a plethora of research on children younger than teens too and none of it paints a pretty picture.

I can imagine. Highschool in a normal sense was already bad enough. I should consider myself lucky now, for having gone through that before all of this (early 90s).

edit:

Japan is now back at 2nd biggest stock market.

 

[GlacierNine]

Yes, buzzwords wont hold a company up forever. Eventually, you need to, you know, actually make money. Funds raised from VC and the stock market dont count, you need to be able to turn an actual profit, or investors will eventually jump ship while they can.

How long was yahoo around before being enveloped into the folds of verizon? How about AOL?

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Facebook wont last forever, younger people are already leaving the platform in favor of other social media (some owned by facebook). Eventually ol' Zucky is going to either be ousted from his own company after enough screwups, or people will abandon the platform in favor of some other site, like myspace, AOL messenger, and yahoo messenger before it.

It may eventually become like AT&T, which has existed for many decades, but at the same time that company has gone through a lot, including a government breakup. Even if facebook survives, the current facebook as we know it will eventually be replaced from the inside out.

Nothing is destined to exist forever. All companies are at a perpetual risk of failure if they don't adapt, or if they're outcompeted, or if the market moves on without them.

But that changes nothing about what I said - Facebook's business model is self-sustaining by design. They literally create their own market by serving their market.

 

[Xpect]

Sure that isn't trillion?

Yes.
Million: 1.000.000
Milliard: 1.000.000.000
Billion: 1.000.000.000.000
Billiard: 1.000.000.000.000.000
Trillion: 1.000.000.000.000.000.000