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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Fowler who wrote (28968)	12/4/1998 11:39:00 PM
From: OtherChap	Respond to of 164684

>Not only that why drive down to the store to rent when i can make my >selection in the home. Yes i'm ready for this and is over due. Perhaps if you were unable to leave your house for some health reasons, maybe. My local video store rents DVDs for 2.99 for two nights. If my girlfriend and I decide to rent something, we go do it. Even assuming you dont care about waiting 4-5 days for your rented DVD to arrive in the mail, do you also not care about paying shipping and handling in both directions? Your total cost is going to come to a minimum of 10 bucks or so- and for 5 bucks more you could have just bought the darn thing. Renting DVDs over the net. As usual, only one segment of this market will make money- the "gay porn" DVD rental. Trust me, I have friends in the biz who rent VHS tapes over the net and 95% of their income comes from gay porn videos. Mainly because a large percentage of the people who want to watch these things will not go to a store to rent or buy them (embarassment factor) and in many states they cannot be sold legally in the first place. Where they ARE legal to buy, the prices are usually 49.95 or thereabouts, because they have a captive market. But hey, if Amazon thinks they can make money renting gay porn DVDs, more power to them. They've already proven they can't make money selling anything else.

To: Mark Fowler who wrote (28968)	12/5/1998 12:04:00 AM
From: blankmind	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

Brilliant ? Ll, i will because i don't like paying $25 to 30 bucks a pop for DVDs. Not only that why drive down to the store to rent when i can make my selection in the home. Yes i'm ready for this and is over due. Have you heard of the pay-per-view channel i hope? It seems to me like a down load over the internet. I'll have to check into this more. - mark fowler they ship the dvd disc. now you have the problem of having to deal with the post office (return). give me the video clerk. this is not internet download (i hope not for those with 56k - they could catch it on broadcast tv by the time they download). purchasing proves to be a bargain. rental $4, shipping $3. returning another $3 (guestimate). you have now spent $10, for that $3 rental at your local store. sort of like shopping at amzn for the low price on books and tapes (pay more plus shipping). i can see why they teamed up.

To: Mark Fowler who wrote (28968)	12/5/1998 7:07:00 AM
From: llamaphlegm	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

mark surely there are some other components of the bus week article that warrant debate or do all bulls just ignore the numerous bearish points put up by the journalists (hey, i didn't write the article)??? lp

To: Mark Fowler who wrote (28968)	12/5/1998 7:16:00 AM
From: llamaphlegm	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

mark i don't know man - this seems pretty clear to me Can Amazon.com achieve a nearly 60% average annual revenue growth rate over 10 years? That's where investors must turn to industry fundamentals and old-fashioned common sense. For instance, using Wolf's calculations, Amazon should reach sales of $63 billion in 10 years. Is that realistic? Not by a long shot. U.S. retail book sales in 1997 were $11.8 billion, and they're not expected to be much higher in 1998. Even if the book market expanded at 3% a year, it would be only around $16 billion 10 years out. True, Amazon is selling recorded music, but that market is no larger than books, with growth prospects no better. ''Amazon has to sell a lot more than books, CDs, and videos if it's ever going to reach the revenue growth implied in the price,'' says Wolf. True, that's in the company's plans. But as it changes from a bookstore to a mass marketer, it will run up against competitors. Says Wolf: ''Barriers to entry are low, and others can easily underprice them.'' even assume a combined $30 billion book, cd, and music market (too high and implying a spectacular growth rate)-- that's the WHOLE market. Next assume that bezos under-estimates the % sales that will happen over the web by factor of 5 (he recently quoted a 10% estimate) but let's you and i use 50% -- fair? ok 15 billion in web sales. Next, what % of the market do you want to give amazon (remember we're going out 5 year) --- assume borders, bks, walmart, costco, tower, cdnow-ntki, bmg, columbia house reel.com have gone bankrupt -- i give amzn everything all $15 billion. now where is the other $45 billion coming from? overcharging on palmpilots? pc? flowers? cars? travel? You can get all those today with choice at any portal. lp ps no idea where this stock goes ... long term, i'm sure, short term no clue.