On the Shoulders of Giants: Internet companies succeed by disintermediation, not creation per se

[Scot]

Re: On the Shoulders of Giants: Internet companies succeed by disintermediation, not creation per se

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart...revenue-2011-3



Now compare Ebay's revenues for the same period:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3942[/ATTACH]

Any questions?

Yeah. Why didn't you put up revenues for monster.com or dice.com? Ebay doesn't usually list jobs, after all, so how can they be stealing that part of papers' revenues derived from help wanted classified ads?

[c1ue]

Re: On the Shoulders of Giants: Internet companies succeed by disintermediation, not creation per se

Yeah. Why didn't you put up revenues for monster.com or dice.com? Ebay doesn't usually list jobs, after all, so how can they be stealing that part of papers' revenues derived from help wanted classified ads?

Because revenues combined for Monster.com and dice.com were under $1.5B for 2009 and falling.

Clearly job related classified ads are quite different than goods, real estate, and so forth.

Certainly all the lost revenue from the classified ad world doesn't directly siphon to Ebay; Craiglist after all isn't in this picture.

But on the other hand, clearly there is a relationship.

[flintlock]

Re: On the Shoulders of Giants: Internet companies succeed by disintermediation, not creation per se

You describe the traditional role of a trusted merchant. A hundred years ago Sears Roebuck and J.C. Penny earned their mark-ups exactly that way, by choosing the merchandise in their catalog and then standing good for the returns and warranty.

People still value that service, finding the good products from among the crap and junk, and getting them delivered at a fair price.

Personally, I like good intermediaries. I want a few trusted sources rather than an endless universe of unknown peddlers for all my purchases.

I agree. I reward good intermediaries with my loyal patronage. I don't care if I pay a little more, but often the good company is one of the cheapest also.

Talking about crap and junk. There is a large home improvement store that seems to think no one will notice that they are pushing crap on their customers. They think a cheap price justifies just about any lack of discretion when choosing which product to sell. I miss the days of the "trusted merchant".

[flintlock]

Re: On the Shoulders of Giants: Internet companies succeed by disintermediation, not creation per se

Absolutely. Craigslist is a huge factor in classifieds. More and more used stuff is being sold on Craigslist now vs Ebay. Ebay has trended more to selling new items since when I first started buying things there many years ago.

How many other industries have been destroyed by "free" services like Craigslist?

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: On the Shoulders of Giants: Internet companies succeed by disintermediation, not creation per se

I agree. I reward good intermediaries with my loyal patronage. I don't care if I pay a little more, but often the good company is one of the cheapest also.

Talking about crap and junk. There is a large home improvement store that seems to think no one will notice that they are pushing crap on their customers. They think a cheap price justifies just about any lack of discretion when choosing which product to sell. I miss the days of the "trusted merchant".

I can't find the attribution of this old quote; I saw it at Baskin Robbins ice cream shops as a kid

" There is scarcely anything in this world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper,and those that study price alone are this mans lawful prey"

[flintlock]

Re: On the Shoulders of Giants: Internet companies succeed by disintermediation, not creation per se

I can't find the attribution of this old quote; I saw it at Baskin Robbins ice cream shops as a kid

" There is scarcely anything in this world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper,and those that study price alone are this mans lawful prey"

That quote is on my website! Attributed to John Ruskin. Right under the page on pricing.

It is unwise to pay too much. But it is worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money; that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything because the product you bought is incapable of doing what it was bought to do.

The common law of business prohibits paying a little and getting a lot. It can’t be done.

If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that, you would have enough to pay for something better.

There is hardly anything in this world that someone can’t make a little worse and sell a little cheaper-and people who consider price alone are this man’s lawful prey.

By John Ruskin 1819-1900

[Chris Coles]

Re: On the Shoulders of Giants: Internet companies succeed by disintermediation, not creation per se

It is unwise to pay too much. But it is worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money; that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything because the product you bought is incapable of doing what it was bought to do.

The common law of business prohibits paying a little and getting a lot. It can’t be done.

If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that, you would have enough to pay for something better.

There is hardly anything in this world that someone can’t make a little worse and sell a little cheaper-and people who consider price alone are this man’s lawful prey.

By John Ruskin 1819-1900

In a past life, with a friend, Alan Drake, we set up a container repair facility in the port of Southampton, England, and were doing well, but in the fiercest competition imaginable; forced on us by the container shipping companies. We had survived two major dock strikes that had brought us to our knees financially, but needed some further input from our principle investor, Hambros Bank. Their "adviser" sitting in on our meetings, decided we needed to raise our hourly rate by a small margin, which advice we set into motion and our largest customer, Atlantic Containers, removed all their work from our facility the very same day. All of it, and delivered it to our competitors. We were immediately placed into bankruptcy. Gone!.

Afterward, we did hear, that all of our customers were very upset at our demise.

How I wish that I had known of this small quotation by Ruskin back then; my life might just have turned out quite differently. Ho Hum!!

[flintlock]

Re: On the Shoulders of Giants: Internet companies succeed by disintermediation, not creation per se

Well eventually profit is the name of the game. If you can't make it on the current prices then you can't. At some point it becomes a better idea to just move on to greener pastures. In my case I simply quit doing those type of jobs where people think price alone matters. I let them find out the hard way. Then I charge them twice as much to fix things.

[shiny!]

Re: On the Shoulders of Giants: Internet companies succeed by disintermediation, not creation per se

Absolutely. Craigslist is a huge factor in classifieds. More and more used stuff is being sold on Craigslist now vs Ebay. Ebay has trended more to selling new items since when I first started buying things there many years ago.

How many other industries have been destroyed by "free" services like Craigslist?

I think Craig's List is wonderful. Ebay shot itself in the foot by constantly raising the fees it charges vendors.

[reggie]

Re: On the Shoulders of Giants: Internet companies succeed by disintermediation, not creation per se

I think Craig's List is wonderful. Ebay shot itself in the foot by constantly raising the fees it charges vendors.

Ebay did not shoot itself in the foot, they are pursuing a deliberate strategy to disinfranchise their smaller clients while promoting larger corporate players, in an effort to create a more vertical retail & aftermarket supply chain. Hence, Ebay invested in Craigslist to crush it, so as to limit horizontal (i.e. peer-to-peer) commerce, in accordance with its long term strategies. This came out in the lawsuit.

PS. This strategy is far more consistent with an agenda for control then an agenda for profit. Horizonal supply chains are being restricted to "social production" only, as we see in cybernetic systems such as Facebook. For more, see Benkler's "Wealth of Networks", which provides some insights.