[ethbr0]

Walk before you run.

I very much doubt Blue Origin intends to freeze rocket development after this launch.

Blue Origin now has a successful manned flight under their belt, and a revenue stream.

While it might surprise some here, Amazon started by selling just books...

It feels like similar attitude comments on that would have been "They'll never compete with Walmart. Real retail stores sell all kinds of things."

[kiba]

Blue Origin don't need a revenue stream. They need Jeff Bezo to light fire under their ass.

As a company that started a year before SpaceX and funded by the richest man in the world, the company should have no problem with being aggressive.

Yes, walk before you run. SpaceX did this too, but their leadership has a sense of urgency. Blue Origin don't.

[iso1631]

20 yeas from founding to a suborbital demo flight, 15 years of development for the rocket itself. New Shephard will never make orbit, it's a dead end.

New Glenn would be great if it existed. As it stands it's likely to be eclipsed by Starship. B.O. are going to have to change into a whole new gear if they want to compete. I have far more confidence in rocketlab scaling upwards from electron than in Blue Origin scaling anywhere.

[DennisP]

I mostly agree but BO does at least plan a variant of the New Shephard engine for New Glenn's upper stage.

[ceejayoz]

> Walk before you run.

Walking is a precursor to running, though.

Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic's current spacecraft are dead-ends. They can't ever go to orbit. New Glenn can, but it's vaporware thus far; if it sees a development schedule like New Shepard's there'll be a SpaceX Mars base before it manages its first hop.

[dimitrios1]

Well to be fair, they don't compete with Walmart. Walmart almost doubled Amazon's revenue last year, and that was during the height of a pandemic, which naturally steered people towards more online orders, something you think would tip the scales in Amazon's favor.

[cptskippy]

> Walmart almost doubled Amazon's revenue last year,

Eh... that's not really true, it's about 1.45x the revenue, not 2x. And that's not the whole picture.

Revenue for 2020:

    Walmart: $559 billion

    Amazon: $386 billion

Operating income for 2020:

    Walmart: $20.6 billion

    Amazon: $22.9 billion

Net Income (business/total) for 2020:

    Walmart: $15.2/14.9 billion

    Amazon: $22.1/21.3 billion

[dimitrios1]

Which one seems more likely to you:

a. Amazon solves brick and mortar b. Walmart solves online sales.

Given the way things are going with Amazon essentially throwing in the towel with counterfeit reviews and products, I would put my money on Walmart eating Amazon's lunch this decade.

Don't forget political influence as well. Walmart has a large fraction of congress on bankroll.

[cptskippy]

You started out by claiming "they don't compete with Walmart" because "Walmart almost doubled Amazon's revenue last year". But since that's not true you've moved the goal post and now you're claiming "Walmart eating Amazon's lunch this decade" is the most likely scenario because Amazon has a counterfeit product problem and Walmart has political connections.

I don't think you understand just how insignificant the counterfeit issue is. Amazon reports it as 0.01% of sales, but even they're off by a factor of 100 that's just 1%. And 1% of their .com revenue is still less than 0.5% of their overall revenue because most of Amazon's profits come from AWS.

> Amazon solves brick and mortar

What is there to solve? Amazon has a logistics infrastructure that Walmart can't touch. If they decided to open a big box store do you really thing the counterfeit issues in their affiliate program would harm them? It's not like they'd put affiliate merchandise on the floor. I feel like they could figure out how to unload trucks to retail shelves and do in person payment processing at least as well as Walmart.

> Walmart solves online sales.

Walmart has been competing with Amazon in online sales for a decade, how's that going? Walmart has nothing to compete with Amazon's Audible, Echo, Ring, Blink, or Prime offerings. Sure they have free shipping with Walmart+ and an affiliate program but is that enough? They've tried countless times to compete against Amazon and failed, most recently they sold Vudo off. At the same time Amazon has launched countless brands and new products with great success.

Amazon.com's tone deaf Billionaire founder and their treatment of their workers are a far greater risk to them than Walmart. But bad reputation and consumer dislike aren't going to kill Amazon anymore than they've done so with Walmart who has infamy for destroying both small town America and America's manufacturing infrastructure.

Honestly I'm not sure why you'd want either of these companies to succeed.

[dimitrios1]

> But since that's not true you've moved the goal post

I said "about" 2x. Ok, about doing some heavy lifting, so it's closer to about 1.5 for 2020, during a pandemic. What's a typical year? Ah but you are so focused on technically correct, you missed the forest for the trees. My point still remains. The gulf between what Amazon sells and Walmart sells is so wide, it's hardly seen as "competing". Amazon themselves have admitted to this fact (and have used this fact to shield themselves from anti-competitive legislation. One of their favorite moves is to point at Walmart and say "they are the big guys, not us") So these are just established facts, not moving any sort of goal posts. I am not here to defend a thesis or dissertation, we are having a casual conversation on the internet.

I guess you must be one of those guys who demands zero margin of error in their conversations? If so, you must be fun at parties.

> Honestly I'm not sure why you'd want either of these companies to succeed.

Speaking of fallacies, never did I say I want them to succeed, so here's your straw man back. I am observing the reality of what is, and what is likely to happen.

[cptskippy]

> I am observing the reality of what is, and what is likely to happen.

Your supporting arguments include counterfeiting and soon to be dead politicians as reasons why Amazon will fail but are reality based observations about what's likely to happen?

Also if you don't think Amazon/Bezos has any political sway then you're not paying attention to what's been happening with Pentagon or NASA contracts.

[l30n4da5]

have you _seen_ walmart.com? their online store rivals amazon easily.

[cptskippy]

Walmart.com is an extension of their retail services. There's some overlap with Amazon.com but both offer services and features the others don't and neither fully supplant one another.

Walmart's affiliate program allows them to cater to the long tail market that Amazon has long dominated but that alone isn't going to convince people to switch to Walmart.com. Why not go to Ebay or Newegg instead?

Walmart+ costs 2/3 of Amazon Prime but doesn't offer any of the digital services available like Audiobooks, ebooks, Videos, Music, Gaming, and photo storage/backup. For many those services are more valuable than free shipping or pharmacy discounts.

What does Walmart.com offer that's going to convince people to shop their over Amazon, Newegg, Ebay or other online retailers?

[dolmen]

Walmart.com ships only in the US. Not in Europe, Asia.

While Amazon has stores for all regions of the world that count.