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Ars Technica Puts Twitter, Uber On '2018 Deathwatch' (arstechnica.com)
The editors of Ars Technica have compiled their annual list of "Companies, tech, and trends least likely to succeed in 2018... Let's grab a Juicero and take a moment to reflect on the utter dumpster fires that we've witnessed over the past 12 months." Some of its highlights:
Uber. "The company is losing billions of dollars a year, with no clear strategy for getting to profitability. Uber lost $2.8 billion in 2016 and will lose even more than that in 2017. Uber had $6.6 billion cash on hand in mid-2017 -- money that might not last much beyond the end of 2018... The company needs to find a way to stem its losses and get on the path to profitability before investors get frustrated and close their checkbooks..."
Twitter. "Still a money-losing concern. In 2016, it lost a mere $456.9 million, and its losses have continued in 2017 (though at a slightly less hemorrhagic pace). Still, on paper, the company is burning through the equivalent of a third of its cash on hand per year. And profitability (or an acquisition) is nowhere in sight..."
Net Neutrality. "It's not a company, but it's on deathwatch anyway..."
They also advise readers to "Pour out one for Radio Shack, which died even faster the second time around after what looked like a brave reboot" (though it's now getting another reboot). And they're bragging about their successful picks last year for the companies least likely to succeed in 2017.
"Yahoo has now been officially digested by Oath, a Verizon Company, its bits commingling with AOL's in a new, bizarrely named beast that for now bears the same logos... Yik Yak, the anonymous gossiping-messaging app that got banned by various universities for hate speech, is dead -- selling its intellectual property to Square, of all companies... Theranos is busy sending out thousands of refunds to Arizona residents, and the company has rented out its Palo Alto headquarters in an attempt to stay solvent until it can legally test blood again... BlackBerry doesn't make phones any more, having licensed its trademark and some of its tech to TCL. It is now a 'cybersecurity software and services company dedicated to securing the Enterprise of Things.'"
Twitter. "Still a money-losing concern. In 2016, it lost a mere $456.9 million, and its losses have continued in 2017 (though at a slightly less hemorrhagic pace). Still, on paper, the company is burning through the equivalent of a third of its cash on hand per year. And profitability (or an acquisition) is nowhere in sight..."
Net Neutrality. "It's not a company, but it's on deathwatch anyway..."
They also advise readers to "Pour out one for Radio Shack, which died even faster the second time around after what looked like a brave reboot" (though it's now getting another reboot). And they're bragging about their successful picks last year for the companies least likely to succeed in 2017.
"Yahoo has now been officially digested by Oath, a Verizon Company, its bits commingling with AOL's in a new, bizarrely named beast that for now bears the same logos... Yik Yak, the anonymous gossiping-messaging app that got banned by various universities for hate speech, is dead -- selling its intellectual property to Square, of all companies... Theranos is busy sending out thousands of refunds to Arizona residents, and the company has rented out its Palo Alto headquarters in an attempt to stay solvent until it can legally test blood again... BlackBerry doesn't make phones any more, having licensed its trademark and some of its tech to TCL. It is now a 'cybersecurity software and services company dedicated to securing the Enterprise of Things.'"
Twitter is highly unlikely to be allowed to die any time soon. It's too useful of a propaganda tool.
It will be kept afloat by those interested in maintaining the existing propaganda networks on twitter. It's a very cheap asset when you view it in this light, and likely the primary reason for its current ownership structure. And those owners are more than wealthy enough to keep twitter afloat indefinitely, while ensuring that they have more and more control over it as twitter's money woes continue to pressure the staff.
- HTC is doing better now that they sold their phone business to Google. We'll see if Google messes up like they did with Motorola.
- Uber will be fine. They'll IPO in 2020 at more than $20 Billion in valuation. That'll be a huge disappointment for Uber investors, but the world never has to go back to the taxi.
- Twitter will be like Yelp. Not a great business, but an ongoing one.
- Faraday and Karma and a bunch of other hyped electric car businesses will fail and get absorbed into Fiat or some other non-US car maker. But maybe not in 2018. Tesla will keep going.
- Gearbox has Borderlands 3 in 2018. It should be a huge success if they don't pull an EA and accidentally cut their own throats.
- Apple will prove critics wrong again by selling more iPhone X units than expected. Apple profitability will be helped by AirPod and Watch sales. New products in 2018 will be good. Critics will continue to be wrong.
- Cisco, Apple, Intel, Oracle, and Microsoft will all announce a special dividend for stockholders and huge stock buybacks, paid for by funds finally brought back from overseas.
- Slashdot will continue to be a politics and Internet-complaint site that occasionally mentions technology topics.
- Facebook use will see year over year usage declines in the US
- Silicon Valley culture will continue to be authoritarian as it relates to politically correctness. Calling people racist is the only marketable skill some people have.
- Red Dead Redemption 2 will be the biggest entertainment release of the year, bigger than any other game, book, movie, TV show, sporting event, or music release. It will be an amazing world. The story will be very good, but not as good as Red Dead Redemption.
Do you have a reliable source, not ones tainted by socialist America haters who regularly push fake news?
Businessinsider can hardly be called "socialist America haters".
But perhaps you are begging the question by classifying anything that reports what goes against what Trump says as "socialist America haters" and "fake news"?
Hardly so. Whether BTC has a future as a currency or not is very much up for debate, but its current market cap is a statistical error in the grand scheme of things.