Enjoy Netflix While It Lasts. It Can't Keep Going Like This Forever. (washingtonpost.com) 194
An anonymous reader shares a column: Derek Thompson, writing in the Atlantic last month, highlighted the ways in which contemporary millennial lifestyles are in many ways subsidized by venture capital. Unprofitable businesses are currently offering up great deals to urbanites who otherwise would be unable to afford their fancy city-living in large part because of losses incurred as the cost of buying up market share. "If you wake up on a Casper mattress, work out with a Peloton before breakfast, Uber to your desk at a WeWork, order DoorDash for lunch, take a Lyft home, and get dinner through Postmates, you've interacted with seven companies that will collectively lose nearly $14 billion this year," Thompson wrote of the "Millennial Lifestyle Sponsorship." He doesn't mention it, but there's another key player in the MLS field: Netflix. As Richard Rushfield has noted in his excellent newsletter on Hollywood business, The Ankler, Netflix is in a tricky position. The vast majority of Netflix's viewers (upwards of 80 percent, according to him) watch licensed content ("Friends" and the like) and in order to create a library of programming audiences will pay for, they've gone massively in debt: "Netflix is currently in the hole for about $20 billion in debt and obligations and still operating at a loss."
Those benefiting from the "Netflix and Chill" branch of the Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy tree don't care. And it's all well and good for a Silicon Valley unicorn, one of those rare tech beasts whose valuations do not match profit-loss statements because there's no real competition yet and everyone believes first-mover status is an insurmountable advantage. But with the rapid rise of vicious streaming competition -- the ascendancy of Hulu and niche programmers such as Criterion; the creation of streaming services by Disney, Warner Brothers and Apple, to name a (very) few -- Netflix's advantage seems to be fading. One can already sense a sort of nostalgia for the golden age of bingeing while reading the Hollywood Reporter's roundtable with seven studio heads. "Doesn't it bum you out that you can't make 'The Irishman?'" asked THR's Matthew Belloni. And while one might expect studio heads to go the diplomatic route and say no -- everyone in Hollywood believes in their own product, after all, and there are no regrets ahead of time -- you believe the execs when they answer in the negative. "You know, it actually doesn't. It would bum me out if no one made the movie," Universal's Donna Langley said. "It's never been a better time for filmmakers and storytelling and for things to find their way into the world that were getting squeezed over the last five or six years or even longer."
Those benefiting from the "Netflix and Chill" branch of the Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy tree don't care. And it's all well and good for a Silicon Valley unicorn, one of those rare tech beasts whose valuations do not match profit-loss statements because there's no real competition yet and everyone believes first-mover status is an insurmountable advantage. But with the rapid rise of vicious streaming competition -- the ascendancy of Hulu and niche programmers such as Criterion; the creation of streaming services by Disney, Warner Brothers and Apple, to name a (very) few -- Netflix's advantage seems to be fading. One can already sense a sort of nostalgia for the golden age of bingeing while reading the Hollywood Reporter's roundtable with seven studio heads. "Doesn't it bum you out that you can't make 'The Irishman?'" asked THR's Matthew Belloni. And while one might expect studio heads to go the diplomatic route and say no -- everyone in Hollywood believes in their own product, after all, and there are no regrets ahead of time -- you believe the execs when they answer in the negative. "You know, it actually doesn't. It would bum me out if no one made the movie," Universal's Donna Langley said. "It's never been a better time for filmmakers and storytelling and for things to find their way into the world that were getting squeezed over the last five or six years or even longer."
Netflix was planning for this ten years ago (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but there are no other streaming services with as large of a world wide audience as Netflix. All that money that they dropped on productions? Paid off in terms of international connections, while keeping profits below windfall levels. Netflix has understood that their time of total dominance was limited, so they've developed a strategy of creating and curating content that has cross cultural appeal. And they have all that data on world markets that they have never shared with anyone. Disney+ and the others will certainly eat some of Netflix's lunch domestically, but they have neither the cross cultural content nor expertise to rapidly develop worldwide markets.
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I think I disagree with you on particulars - most of Netflix production seems crap. But most things are crap, right?
In any case, it's not like netflix will evaporate. If they "fail", they will be bought out by disney or hulu or google or whoever today's unicorn with too much cash and not enough eyeballs is.
Yeah, things will change. For anyone who has been a netflix customer for a decade will tell you - things have been changing. So...
No different than different.
Re:Netflix was planning for this ten years ago (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you hit the nail on the head. It's crap. But it's crap with a world wide appeal. Like McDonalds.
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That could be both companies' new slogans:
"Welcome to Netflix/McDonalds: Crap with world wide appeal!"
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They could join together, and become McFlix or NetDonalds.
Totally agree (Score:5, Insightful)
I was going to post something similar, but you've laid it out as clearly as it can be for people that don't really have much depth in understanding the streaming market, just why Netflix is in such a great position as they are...
You can see that data at work with newer shows they produce. They have such a massive advantage in all sorts of respects, it is really hard to see anyone catching up for a very long time... Disney might have the best shot with one of the broader interest libraries, but even then do they know what to look for? Or instead will they just assume they know how to make content and not really listen to viewers the way Netflix does?
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You guys are misunderstanding the point: what "great position" are they in? They are massively in debt and the debt is getting worse, not better. You guys are confusing "great content" with the point of the article.
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No, it's not about great content at all. It's about content with world wide appeal. McDonalds is crap, but it sells everywhere. Netflix went into debt in order to nail down the international market. It's smart business, part of the plan for dealing with competition they knew was coming. https://www.forbes.com/sites/s... [forbes.com]
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I sincerely hope you do invest because I make money off of guys like you who make poor choices. Without idiot investors taking losses, there'd be no winners. I appreciate you, bud.
Re:Totally agree (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not your asshole, pal.
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Um, no. Debt cannot be paid off by expansion of revenue. Do you even know what "revenue" is? Too stupid.
Re:So clear, yet your vision so dark... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, you'd be yelling at most businesses the same thing. A car rental company buys more cars than it can rent, hoping to expand into them. Not having them and getting bad reviews for not having any cars to rent would be worse than buying for growth. But it would be spending money you don't have while you aren't making a profit, so we should choose between Avis and Hertz, since they were here first, so we don't have to see them expand.
Netflix is building a library. They currently charge less to view the library than they are spending building it. You are right that it's unsustainable. However, it's not necessarily a bad thing.
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> Or instead will they [disney] just assume they know how to make content and not really listen to viewers the way Netflix does?
Have you SEEN Star Wars lately?
Re:Totally agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Disney's little service is going to show the folly of the single streaming model. When they first deploy Disney+ it will get record subscriptions and will hold those while the price remains the initial $6.99 promised. But make no mistake, Disney as a company can't survive paying CEO's $100million a year with $6.99 subscriptions. They rely heavily on those massive revenues they get from every cable TV service. The existence of Disney's service will drive even more people to cut the cord which within a year or two will decimate Disney's cable revenue. They will attempt to compensate by raising the cost of the Disney+ service and they'll likely see the result of that in lost subscriptions.
The fact is both Disney, Warner media, CBS and all the others have gotten FAT on the profits of selling their product to every network and then blackmailing them into a yearly increase in cost by threatening to cut that cable provider off and then advertise for people to switch services. But once they are a sole vendor for their product selling direct to consumers they are going to find out just how not valuable their content actually is. I'd expect just like ATT before them they'll jack up prices to the current $80 or $90 a month costs that your typical Basic cable package nets today and in the process massive numbers of people will dump the service just like they are doing to ATT right now.
All these providers would be much better off with a license to every streamer model. Bringing this all in house guarantees the even speedier death of cable TV revenues and at the same time limits them to the only seller. Now they are on the hook for advertising the Disney+ service and customer retention, which means for the first time in history Disney will need to care what customers think. I have no doubt that within 5 years this will do significant damage to all the content owners businesses.
Disney and the other content business have gotten so fat on forced cable revenues they've forgotten what the content will actually be worth on the market when there is only one seller and their stockholders are going to be SHOCKED they've been lied to. With Disney's huge executive salaries alone every Disney+ subscriber in the US would need to pay something like $10 just to cover those executive salaries, not to mention all the other billions in costs from networks, movies and everything else.
Mark my words, that Disney+ package will cost at least $60 a month by the end of next year. Netflix in the meantime will be chugging along, fully profitable because they aren't fat like the current providers and they know the value and costs of streaming.
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Doesn't Disney have a habit of stuffing well-known and popular content into the vault and letting stuff go essentially out of print?
They've been developing content for a century, but its not like I would expect Disney+ to just make the entire Disney back catalog available instantly. They will parcel it out, creating an "event" period where certain content is available and then take it away, forcing viewers to hang onto the service indefinitely.
There's a lot of interesting Disney content from the 1940s and
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You can see that data at work with newer shows they produce.
I don't know that I agree. Netflix has a problem: they are getting the reputation of being data-driven at the expense of quality. Like others have posted, their original content is largely considered to be crap. The few gems that they accidentally produce, they snuff out before they get a chance to grow. (And this is also data-driven, based on their cost/benefit analysis of how long a show should last.)
The problem that Netflix has is that they're effectively losing their good will. How many people do you kn
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As usual, people don't understand. Netflix's debt is $12B. This is a 20% increase from the year before. Eventually the debt comes due. And no, don't pull out the "but Amazon lost money for years" card. They aren't Amazon.
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Maybe Forbes can explain it too you better than I can: https://www.forbes.com/sites/s... [forbes.com]
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Forbes is a rag. No one seriously reads that at this point. Think for yourself: how do you pay back $20,000,000,000 (and 20% more next year and 20% more the year after, etc)? They are on their ninth cap raise. It ain't gonna last forever.
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So, no refutation of the points raised? Just a pivot back to your own talking points? And a "Think for yourself" response?!?
That's not an argument, it's just contradiction! So sorry, but I'm not interested in further conversations with you. Have yourself a nice day. Elsewhere.
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What "points"? You provided a link to an ad-laden malware site that doesn't allow adblockers. Don't forget to buy some more of Netflix tomorrow. Get em on margin! Because, um, debt doesn't matter, because revenue or "nailing markets", or something.
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The whole article comes down to one quote from Netflix itself: "in optimizing our balance sheet, we strive for the capital structure that results in the lowest weighted average cost of capital. Given low interest rates, the tax deductibility of debt and our low debt to enterprise value, financing growth through the debt market is currently more efficient than issuing equity."
So as long as the debt cost is low or one can finance via equity issuance they will be alive. But during the first big crisis where th
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Which is the higher discretionary spending - Cable or Netflix? If people want to save money then better to cut cable and subscribe to Netflix surely.
Netflix hasn't stopped growing exponentially, it doesn't look like to me like they will have difficulty paying their debt off either from revenue or through sharer issuance.
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Well it all depends doesn't it.
Lets say your landscaping business made 60K in revenue this year. At first blush taking on a 40K loan to buy two used pickups might sound like an enormous expansion in debt. However if you believe those two assets would let you make 600K in revenue next year well that 40K liability does not seem so bad now. In fact it should probably be pretty easy to pay off.
The question isn't how fast Netflix debt is growing, its how fast are its deficit is growing if at all (sometime com
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You guys don't even know what "revenue" really means. I can start a company selling $100 bills for $80 and I will have massive revenue.
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As usual, people don't understand. Netflix's debt is $12B. This is a 20% increase from the year before. Eventually the debt comes due. And no, don't pull out the "but Amazon lost money for years" card. They aren't Amazon.
Well, not yet at least. In the end we all become Amazon; whether we like it or not.
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I'd say there are some parallels, the argument for Amazon was that they were building infrastructure; presumably Netflix is purchasing rights to content in perpetuity (royalties aside) which builds back catalogue. You might argue that content isn't evergreen which generally isn't, but buildings don't last forever and require maintenance.
For me though, their content strategy has been an utter failure and produced nothing I'd want to watch. At this point the Netflix logo has become synonymous with garbage and
This is true (Score:2)
I watch a lot of Korean dramas and comedies and I'm not Korean (and don't speak the language). Some of the Spanish stuff is also good.
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So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Those benefiting from the "Netflix and Chill" branch of the Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy tree don't care.
And why the hell should they? (I mean we).
The billions of stupid money flowing into Netflix ( and Uber and all the other companies mentioned) comes from Venture Capitalists hoping to make lots and lots and lots of money. And if they don't they will go broke.
That is a good thing, and is how capitalism is supposed to work.
The problem will come when they start losing their shirts. They will then go cap in hand to the politicians they fund who will then force taxpayers to bail them all out again.
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I'll admit, I don't take advantage of propped up companies often enough. Never used Uber, even though someone else is paying for a large part of the fare. Never tried Moviepass when it was practically free. All because I thought they were failing business models and thought it would somehow cost me in the end.
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (Score:5, Insightful)
Netflix's biggest problem is that the big content providers are continuing to withdraw their catalogs from the platform and introduce their own streaming services (Hulu, Disney+, HBO).
We need another United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc [wikipedia.org] to stop the excessive vertical integration.
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Netflix's biggest problem is that they owe $20,000,000,000 and are going to owe even more next year.
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Sorry buttercup. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to post so much. I'm not sure what you are talking about. I definitely didn't say markets were fair or logical. In fact I said the opposite. I'm sure it made sense to you though, and that is all that matters.
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Why do you think they put so much money into their original series? They need to become a big content provider in order to compete.
A problem, but not for Netflix... (Score:3)
Netflix's biggest problem is that the big content providers are continuing to withdraw their catalogs from the platform and introduce their own streaming services (Hulu, Disney+, HBO).
Five years ago I might have agreed.
But where Netflix is now, that doesn't matter.
Disney+ is a special case because of the IP they own, but irrelevant because it's sho cheap anyone can have that plus something else.
Hulu just doesn't have the original or catalog content to be compelling or competitive.
HBO is even more reliant o
Risque (Score:2)
Those benefiting from ... "Netflix and Chill"
good for a ... unicorn [urbandictionary.com]
I see what you did there. Even if you don't...
Agree (Score:2)
With all those owning content launching their own streaming services, Netflix is destined to the dustbin of history. There is simply no way they can compete by creating new stuff.
Netflix doesn't matter (Score:2)
Yes, maybe Netflix specifically will crumble under its debt load (and other studios ceasing to license their content) - but all the other studios are getting into very similar business models. If Netflix crumbles, will I care? No, I'll just switch to one of the alternatives.
I am very dubious that there's any significant "first mover advantage" to be had in this market, for the simple reason that there's no network effects (people stay with Facebook even when they hate it, because that's where their friend
Well duh (Score:3)
No company is immune to change and challenges. Since 2000 at least 52% of the fortune 500 companies either no longer exist or have been acquired. A person or organization would be foolish to think they are going to last forever.
Netflix originals are awsom (Score:2)
The vast majority of Netflix's viewers (upwards of 80 percent, according to him) watch licensed content ("Friends" and the like)
Seriously? I watch mostly Netflix original content. House of Cards, Better Call Saul, Stranger Things, Marco Polo... all great stuff.
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Seriously? I watch mostly Netflix original content. House of Cards, Better Call Saul, Stranger Things, Marco Polo... all great stuff.
Yeah probably, there's a reason they're paying big bucks for shows like South Park or Friends. I too love some of their original stuff (BoJack, Big Mouth, first season of House of Cards) but re-runs of popular of popular shows always bring in a ton of viewers.
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Check out The King.
Long at 2:20 but I watched it twice in one day (I'd recommend two viewings), once by myself and once with the wife.
Medieval combat would have sucked, and I believe this is a fairly accurate representation (they address supply lines and trebuche sieges).
And there aren't many Henry the 5th movies...
how is Netflix losing money? (Score:4, Interesting)
their public financials say the opposite
yes they have a lot of debt, but that's the cost of making your own shows. they would still be paying this money out to someone else to license content that isn't theirs and be subject to bidding wars. taking out debt means they control their content. same concept as a mortgage
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I'll make it clear. Netflix owes $20,000,000,000+. Next year they will owe even more. The year after that even more. You cannot sell $100 bills for $80 forever. Eventually Guido wants his $20,000,000,000.
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Any company that is under threat that other companies might take their business and doesn't borrow money to grow beyond that threat doesn't deserve to be in business. It would be negligence to give up the lead without doing so.
$20 billion in debt for a company with a market cap over $100 billion is nothing. Compared to their worth, their debt is shrinking, not growing. This is especially interesting right now considering debt is cheaper than what you can make off the money. Many companies with massive amoun
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Ok Boomer (Score:2, Informative)
No, venture capitalists aren't adding all that much value to Millennials lives by blowing cash. The problem for Millennials is that they've got $1 trillion in student load debt and and the median price for a house is $290
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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> * Complain about the cost of housing, but they want to live 10 minutes from work when living 30-60m from work would cut that by 50% or more.
You're not wrong about the majority but for most of us that work in tech and make good money this is just silly.
For one I don't have to waste 2 hours driving every day and pay 200-300 per month on gas & tolls. And I'm one of the lucky ones with a payed off car that I keep around just to go shopping. I bike to work. Takes 10 minutes. I live in Philadelphia by th
Re:Ok Boomer (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a Millennial, and I've lost much of my sympathy for many of cohort after spending a lot of time working around urban Millennials. Some examples:
* Complain about debt and costs, but they eat out CONSTANTLY. * Complain about the cost of housing, but they want to live 10 minutes from work when living 30-60m from work would cut that by 50% or more. * Complain about stagnant wages, but so few of the other Millennials I've worked with have any real piss and vinegar in them about overcoming that.
Literally nothing you said makes anything the parent said less true.
I'm also a millennial. I live in the Boston area and work in the financial district. A one bedroom in Boston costs minimum $2,000/month, but you don't need a car. You can live an hour outside and commute in, but you still pay $1500 and now you need own a car or pay a few hundred dollars a month for a commuter rail pass, making living in/outside of the city basically a wash. Keep in mind, both of the dwellings I mentioned are also going to be shitholes which are kept up by lowest-bidder unskilled "handymen" and owned by slumlords who have no interest in replacing the 1970's appliances in the kitchen. So, in my experience your comment about living thirty minutes outside of a city and paying 50% less rent couldn't be further from the truth.
Yes, there are millenials who eat out constantly, but there are plenty of those that don't. If someone makes six figures and still can't make ends meet, then yeah - that's on them. But living on $45-60k in the situation I described is difficult and doesn't allow you to gain any significant financial ground, even if you're being responsible with your money. This leads to situations where people in their thirties are living with roommates to make ends meet -- meanwhile, their parents are asking them why they wont start a family.
Complain about stagnant wages, but so few of the other Millennials I've worked with have any real piss and vinegar in them about overcoming that.
And I don't know what the fuck this means, but I'm pretty sure it amounts to "lol, try harder." You don't deny that wages are stagnant, just as the parent said, and the solution you offer is to tell people to climb to a higher place on the mound of people scrambling for a piece of the pie. The fact of the matter is there is less and less pie to go around and one individual working hard or getting lucky and getting a nice big piece for themselves doesn't magically create more pie.
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"Six Figures" ain't what it used to be (Score:2)
6 figures ($100k/yr) after taxes for a single person is about $6500/mo take home (give or take).
Now, you're spending $2,000 of that on rent and another $1000 on student loans (if you're lucky, The education that got you those 6 figures wasn't cheap.).
You're down to $3k, so far so good. Only you're supposed to be saving 10% (really 15%, but we'll go easy) for retirement (remember, you're a "responsible" millennial) so you're putting aside $650/mo.
You're cooking your o
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Those are interesting complaints. Let's look at those in turn.
1. You could eat out every day of the week and it would literally cost you less than a few months of interest repayments on a house to say nothing of the repayments on your tuition fees. And the alternative? With food deserts being an actual thing, and fresh food not growing on trees (in the metaphorical sense) there's not that much winnings to be had, even if you didn't lead with the complete and utter hyperbole of CAPITALISING "CONSTANTLY".
2. I
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What's your NPV for living in Boston? if you're going to pay $2,000 for a craphole, then there'd better be a nice ramp up on earnings for you, or else you should be revisiting that.
not everyone can live in the 10 coolest cities. there are literally too many people in CONUS let alone around the world who want to live in those 10 places
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* Complain about the cost of housing, but they want to live 10 minutes from work when living 30-60m from work would cut that by 50% or more.
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I support this use. I use it all the time for no apparent reason as well.
It amuses me. Will be hilarious to dilute it and ruin their fun, like we did with 'woke', 'triggered', and all sorts of other inane gibberish the youngsters like to use.
It will soon go the way of On Fleek and only out of touch 50 year olds will be using it.
So...? (Score:5, Funny)
"If you wake up on a Casper mattress, work out with a Peloton before breakfast, Uber to your desk at a WeWork, order DoorDash for lunch, take a Lyft home, and get dinner through Postmates, you've interacted with seven companies that will collectively lose nearly $14 billion this year,"
So those poor billionaires who finance these companies pay for my lifestyle?
I'm all for it.
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Where did it say Millennials should care? The point is enjoy it while it lasts, because it won't last forever.
Netflix is a bad example (Score:3)
Enjoy netflix while it lasts? (Score:3)
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Because they owe $20,000,000,000 and will owe more and more every year. They have no way of paying that back. It isn't that hard to understand.
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And their debt load is pretty much required with all the other content producers moving to their own bubble. Their competition mostly has cinema and television libraries a century deep.
Someone needs stock moved (Score:2)
I've seen people making comments like these for a while now and they all sound the same.
It's just capitalism discovering socialism. :D (Score:2)
They always talk about the trickle down effect like it was a real thing ... and now that it is a thing and fatcats give back billions of what they originally leeched off, to the advantage of the population, there is bitching ...
Just enjoy it! It's a little bit of market balancing, for a. freaking. change!
In a post scarcity economy... (Score:2)
... the worth of money doesn't matter all that much. As does the value of debt. Netflix will have a replacement that will offer content like the utilities offer water and electricity and the cloud providers offer computing power.
So much wrong here (Score:3)
First of all, debt is only a problem if you are borrowing money to pay off your creditors. If you are investing in growth, which Netflix appears to be doing with 15.8bn. revenue and a 26% growth rate, then it's kind of a meaningless statistic. Frankly I would be more worried about McDonalds, who has 31bn. in debt, 21bn. revenue and a 1.5% decline over the last 12 months.
Secondly, what the fuck does this have to do with millennials? SHOCK HEADLINE: Millenials buy things that are offered to them for sale! What will they do if these things are no longer sold???
I dunno, maybe the same thing Gen X did when blockbuster went under: Nothing, since their buying habits will be what drives the change in the first place. If millenials continue to watch netflix, it will remain. If they stop, it will be gone.
True for anything. (Score:2)
Personally, I'm a little surprised Netflix lasted this long.
I've said this before, and got a lot of disagreement, but I still maintain that ISPs (notably xfinity and the like) REALLY want the streaming services to go back to the old cable TV business model. A single hefty price per month for some "umbrella" service, which includes several basic services, (like hulu) with premium services (like HBO) costing more per month, and huge resistance to the cafeteria model. Part of the profitability of cable TV is
Does this guy have any economics background? (Score:5, Insightful)
Debt is normal for companies. It makes no sense to tie up your liquid equity in something non-liquid if someone else will loan you theirs for a very cheap rate. And the current interest rates are about as cheap as they've ever been in history. Think of it as buying a house. Should you save for 20 years so you can buy a house outright? Or should you get a mortgage and go into debt so you can buy it right now? If the interest rate on the mortgage is low enough that you'll be paying only 60 cents interest over 30 years for every $1 you borrow (roughly where we stand today), then it makes sense to borrow and go into debt, rather than wait. If the interest rate is high enough that you'll be paying $2 for every $1 you borrow, then it doesn't make sense to borrow.
Looking over Netflix's liabilities vs its assets [stock-analysis-on.net], nothing jumps out at me as being egregiously unreasonable. Its debt ratios are roughly the same as other large companies its size. Granted, the data on that page only goes to 2018; I suppose it's possible Netflix went on a massive spending spree this year?
As for their subscribers, we started off with a media aggregator service (Netflix). The industry is currently trending towards each studio streaming its own content (e.g. Disney). Customers prefer an aggregator since it means they only have to pay one bill. So most likely the industry will arrive at a balance point with some aggregation, some self-streaming. And his doom and gloom scenario where Netflix is completely shut out won't come to pass.
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If the interest rate on the mortgage is low enough that you'll be paying only 60 cents interest over 30 years for every $1 you borrow (roughly where we stand today), then it makes sense to borrow and go into debt, rather than wait. If the interest rate is high enough that you'll be paying $2 for every $1 you borrow, then it doesn't make sense to borrow.
This matters less than you think because interest and inflation are tied at the hip. My dad paid 15% interest on his mortgage here in Norway, but inflation also ate >10% of the principal per year. It's the real interest after inflation you should be looking at. Which is now really low, but it's also reflecting that your initial debt is not shrinking very much by itself. With 2% inflation it'll take 35 years for the value of a dollar to be cut in half, while my dad's debt cut itself in half in 7 years. Ho
Dropping Netflix (Score:2)
I've never had my own Netflix account. When I got married I was down to one TV show, South Park, the wife came with a Netflix account. I did enjoy it for a while.
Since Netflix has started pushing pedophilia so hard I've talked the wife into dropping it, she's agreed rather readily for that reason.
Also, Hulu that used to really suck has improved dramatically since the "that show isn't allowed on this screen" and "you have to watch commercials even if you pay" days. So yeah, there's a refuge now.
Re:Many companies will go bankrupt (Score:4, Informative)
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Softbank is fueling a lot of this, but so are tech guys who think every money losing company is going to be "the next Amazon".
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When you think about it, this is really a win-win situation.
VCs can dump their money somewhere in the hope it blows up big, and the poor millenials get subsidized services. I don't really see the downside here.
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It would be really nice if there comes a time when the Saudi royal family are all broke and begging the West for aid. I don't think it will happen, but it would be nice.
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I am a hardcore carnivore and do not own their stock but I think beyondmeat is not a fad. They have a business model. I have no stake in tesla and do not drive one but again they have a viable business model and a path to survival through rapid growth. The rest are junk that will fade almost for sure.
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Oh yeah, they have a business model: ride the VC hype and sell out quick as soon as the lockup expires. There is no path to survival for these money losing, debt laden companies, except for continual capital raises.
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Any investment that Millennials have made are mostly in the companies I listed. They will be hit hard once these companies go out.
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What are you, 90? Mistaking old billionaires desperate investments in money losing tech unicorns thanks to non existent interest rates crushing bond yields. Equating long term investment vehicles that the public market has invested in such as Tesla and Beyond Meat with Softbank style delusions such as Uber and Netflix. And wtf does Snapchat have to do with any of this?
Go back to snorting Trump paste boomer, it's all you're fit for.
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I think you're definitively wrong about Tesla and Beyond Meat. Not because their products are so fantastic, but because there's a huge case of... well, to be neutral let's call it environmental consciousness going around. They'll have plenty of customers willing to pay the premium. Netflix could trade future growth for better cash flow any time by lowering investments and raising prices, so I doubt they'd go out of business that quick. If I was a betting man I'd go with either Uber or Snapchat.
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Nope. Tesla sales in the US are down massively for example. There aren't "plenty of customers". There are a very limited number that are willing to pay a premium. And when a recession hits all that "premium" stuff goes out the window, fast.
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Gawd, you are so predictable.
Yes, Tesla's US sales are down ... completely in line with the increase in lead times.
Tesla's sales in the US are down simply because Tesla is capacity constrained and chose to prioritise overseas deliveries.
At the last call, Tesla stated that demand is outstripping deliveries.
Maybe you should not make any investment decisions with that $50k salary.
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Many companies that Millennials have invested in will go bankrupt or absorbed within 5 years.
Invested in? I'm sorry but who is investing in these companies? Paying for the products or services is not investing. Those doing the actual investing are mostly investment funds, and they are playing with the Boomer's retirement earnings.
Mind you I like that you included Tesla in that list. It should warn anyone not to take you too seriously.
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You're a fool if you think millennials have invested any money in these companies. Most Millennials have no savings, and that means no investments.
The owners of these companies are your retirement plans just like everything else the bulk of the money behind it is retirement plans and 401k's. And based on saving rates that would put the Boomers most at risk, not the Millenials.
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LOL "first mover advantage". You guys crack me up. People switch streaming services like changing their underwear. The only reason these companies are still around is massive amounts of VC money (a.k.a. Saudi oil money) and Millenials and the biggest reason: record low interest rates. It won't last forever. Once the next recession hits these companies will be gone in a literal flash. Five years is being generous.
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I didn't say "because of Millenials", I said "The only reason these companies are still around is massive amounts of VC money (a.k.a. Saudi oil money) and Millenials and the biggest reason: record low interest rates.". Millennials are just the bag holders at the end.
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How are millennials the bag holders? They got their free shit, mostly financed by Saudis and JP Morgan. Sure it's going to crash and the millennials will lose their cheap TV. But mom and dad and the grandparents will lose their retirement savings. And jokes on them, their kids don't have the money to bail them out.
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Around here we call him the "binary bro"
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I think first mover advantage isn't always a sure thing. It's cited because of the times it works, but it just as often fails to work. I would also say that for a lot of newer markets, first mover advantage isn't as valuable as it once was.
For example, who were the smartphone early movers (that released product before Apple and Google)? Palm, RIM, and Microsoft. Not one of them really survived the disruption by Apple and Google. Palm and Microsoft's grip evaporated pretty much instantly, but Blackberry
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(On Beyond Meat) I think it depends. If they can get their prices down, it might work out. People won't keep paying a premium for it, though.
Beyond meat is widely sold by Disney at theme parks now. They are set. The thought they would fade away is absurd; they don't even need to lower prices that much to keep flourishing... but chances are they will also get prices down, partly through demand by partners like Disney.
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Right. They are set because their product is sold at Disney parks. There is some great advice, kids.
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I could do without Netflix. I've only used it 3 times in the past 6 months. My wife on the other hand is another matter.
So, how many times did you use your wife over the last 6 months then?