Absolutely. Also, Tesla doesn't really have the network effects that other industries have (like search). Companies with similar cultural cache are also catching-up like BMW...
That aggressiveness gets noticed and picked up by lots of different outlets -- from tech aggregators to mainstream business publications looking for "punchy" topics. E.g. look at who appears on CNBC programs.
Unfortunately, people have made that into a marketing strategy -- I'm not sure it is something to really hold against Mattermark in particular.
The companies still have to be willing to sell, and there's greater and greater liquidity in the market. While the ICO fad will fade, there will be new financial innovations to take the place of ICOs.
Following your model, then 'innovation' at the big five will slow down and there will be greater incentive for people to create new start-ups... and the cycle will continue.
I would argue there isn't really a network effect for lyft or uber or any ride-sharing company for that matter. There might be brand and price effects for the companies to battle over amidst both riders and drivers.
I'd say there is a network effect for ride-sharing in aggregate, neither Lyft nor Ueber has been good at locking drivers and riders in with loyalty programs to try to keep people solely on their platform.
Yes - In my view revenue (and probably most accountants would also say this) is the delivery fee only. If you think about it, most marketplaces have this same issue. This isn't unique to Instacart, Enron did the same thing...(our accounting prof used them as an example). It's just not useful for analysis of the company.
Edit: Most marketplaces can charge you the "full price" to keep the transaction on the platform; however, they are only paid a small portion of that transaction as revenue -- e.g. Fiverr/Upwork/etc. don't keep the full amount the service provider charges their client, only a (hopefully) small fee.
https://a16z.com/2015/08/21/16-metrics/
#6 Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) vs. Revenue
"In marketplace businesses, these are frequently used interchangeably. But GMV does not equal revenue!" The rest of A16Z's explanation is worth reading.
It's GMV (Gross merchandise volume or GMV is a term used in online retailing to indicate a total sales dollar value for merchandise sold through a particular marketplace over a certain time frame. - wikipedia) not revenue (fulfilling the order through their service). Companies use it to inflate the topline (revenue) figures.
This. Airlines are not a favorable model.
Airlines irrationally invest, deal with fuel costs they have to partially hedge, can't store capacity... the list goes on.
Jerry Yang made a magnificent bet... one of the best investments ever in Alibaba. I don't think he's received enough credit even as Yahoo has been wound down.