[aschampion]

I didn't say margin, I said profit, and you can click a tab over on any of those pages and see overall gross profit is up in 2020. What kind of rational baseline is assuming that increasing margin is the default neutral state? How is that a stable dynamic for any system?

[lotsofpulp]

I have never heard of a business that reaches $x of profit and then switches to pricing everything so that they get $0 of profit.

And why would I be concerned with gross margin? If insurance companies were profiting more than normal from COVID, then it would show up in the profit margin figure.

[93po]

> I have never heard of a business that reaches $x of profit and then switches to pricing everything so that they get $0 of profit.

Isn't this the business model of tons of huge companies? Amazon famously ran at very deliberately low profits for years. Uber and Lyft have margins so low they're losing tons of money in an attempt to get market share.

[lotsofpulp]

>Isn't this the business model of tons of huge companies? Amazon famously ran at very deliberately low profits for years.

No. Operating at low profit margins is not the same as reaching $x of profit and then selling everything at cost.

>Uber and Lyft have margins so low they're losing tons of money in an attempt to get market share.

These do not seem relevant, as most businesses, by and large, year after year, are not giving away products or services to try and gain marketshare.

[plorkyeran]

Eschewing profits now to fuel growth with the intention of making large profits later is the exact opposite of that.