Hacker News Reader

Yeah, there are counter examples everywhere. Actually I think they are way more than the positive examples (like SpaceX), so the world is definitely very, very inefficient. This can be felt by software engineers more acutely because we move fast and hate bureaucracies but sadly humans have to install bureaucracy for itself.

View on HN

SpaceX is basically a monopoly at this point. They defined a new kind of market and is the only one serving it.

Yeah, they were pretty efficient so they were rewarded with monopoly. Now maybe they will become slower and slower over time.

SpaceX is interesting in that the 'market' is 'Elon wants to go to Mars.'

The side effect of that market is that in order to go to Mars and colonize it, you need transformatively massive, instant, and cheap access to space for near infinite tonnage. Which goes against the previous mantra of the industry- expensive, custom, and irregular.

The new 'form' is impossible for the old 'form' to match, hence a monopoly. But since the new form is so cheap and capable, everybody wins, except the old vendors (and the politicians they fund.)

Let's not valorize zero profits. Be suspect of high rates of profit. Why invest if there's no profit?

the Amazon and Tesla model. lots of investors approve of it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com