Amazon Makes a Profit

sofar writes: "Amazon finally makes a profit. Well, only $ 5mln, but maybe you can actually earn something on your stock now. At 1c a share it's no pension fund in Florida yet." I wonder how much of that profit represents 1-click licensing fees.

Ladies and Gentlemen...

[AmbivaLence]

Hell has finally frozen over... Good day.

What to do with the riches?

[Mahtar]

At 5c a share it's no pension fund in Florida yet

No, but I hear Enron is looking for buyers.

Congratulations!

[kitts]

Of course, if you gave me billions of dollars in venture capital I could probably find a way to give you back $5 million too.

Jaded?

[The Good Reverend]

I wonder how much of that profit represents 1-click licensing fees.

Jaded? Party of one? Your table's ready...

Darn...

[Mike Schiraldi]

I would have submitted this first, but i was hit by a flying pig on the way to my computer..

Re:Darn...

[shinji1911]

Personally, I would have too, but I'm too busy trying to get the @##(*@! snowblower to start down here in hell.

My reaction to this...

[eric434]

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19990406

[scene: MS techie in moon suit, facing the perfect home for a new evil AI (in other words, an Arnold Shwartzenegger-type guy)]

MS Techie:[thinking] How do I knock this guy out? He's positively huge. I don't even think a mallet would do him in.

*thinks*

Techie: I heard Amazon.com actually turned a profit this quarter.

*whoomp* [Arnold faints]

Techie:[thinking] Lies and damned lies...

Re:Ladies and Gentlemen...

[SilentChris]

...and thank freaking God for that. Hasn't anybody else been the least bit scared at the lack of Internet growth lately? For years I told friends that I was proud to be part of this new technology, whether it be a cornerstone of the economy or not. However, these past two years I've kind of shrugged off the comments "Bet that Computer Science degree is worth a bunch now!"

All it took was some good old common sense. Stop spending money you don't have. Price-cut, but don't price-cut to the point that you knock your company out. Lay off the cheap sock-puppet gimmicks.

The analysts are wrong: it is a new economy. It's just that the same old rules still apply.

Re:Congratulations!

[oyenstikker]

A lousy bank account would beat that. The question is, how many DECADES will it take for them to get above a 3% increase?

Damn!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I can't use my favorite line anymore, which was "Amazon: they lose a little money on every sale, but make up for it in volume!"

For a while there, there announcments all read along the lines of "Unfortunately, sales increased last quarter, so we lost even more money than the previous quarter."

Re:Porn

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahem..

how hard it is to make money selling porn ... you have to offer a pretty compelling product, or cater to a very specific niche

My dictionary defines "niche" as "a cranny, hollow, or crevice"

insert your own joke here :o) (Pun intended :o)

two important points to take from this ...

[PaganRitual]

... are as follows ...

1) amazon appear to have made a profit without anyone (or me at least) every receiving any spam from them (sure, i get occasional mailing list stuff, but i signed up for that when i created my account with them) ... see? you dont have to piss ppl off with unsolicited emails to try and make money. sometimes you can just work hard at it (and yes, patent and sell off stuff, but they arent the only business to do it, so GET OVER IT already)

2) the news link in the article has what may be the worlds first html anchor of the phrase "pooh-poohed" ... i think this page should be archived somewhere for posterity. im pretty sure that even winnie the poohs personal website doesnt have that phrase on it.

Re:Dot-com model?

[Howie]

don't most people think "ad revenue" when you say "dot-com model?"

Maybe I'm older than the average slashdotter, but I still thought '64K single segment' when I saw .com model :-)

[I know it's from CP/M and VMS before that...]

Re:The Unneccesarily Long Road to Profitability

[Anonymous Coward]

there isn't a single d*mn fucking computer store

So...

damn is too offensive, so you *** it out, but fucking is okay?

wish they'd stop making those damn condo

No, damn is fine too.

Have you been smoking the crack again?

Re:Porn

[foobar104]

When sites like drbizzaro.com and its partners give away so much product for free...

That sound you hear is the drbizzaro.com web server exploding into a gazillion pieces.

Just one comment to make...

[Anonymous Coward]

See this cartoon [userfriendly.org].

Three years later...

Amazon's Accounting Practices

[techsoldaten]

Bringing in Arthur Andersen to do the books was the best thing Amazon could have done.