I actually hadn’t heard of iheartradio before, but after checking it out, it seems like as you mentioned it’s as much a podcasting/music streaming site as it is a radio network. And even then, it looks like it’s the biggest “internet radio” company in the US with a market cap of $250 million. Mark Cuban’s internet radio company was sold for $5.7 billion in 1999… which would be over $10 billion today. So I’m standing by my original statement that he absolutely fleeced Yahoo.
Semantically it might not be a literal scam, but at best it was a bad faith transaction given that he literally bet on his company failing as soon as he sold it.
And internet radio might still exist today, but from a business perspective it’s basically a non-factor in terms of revenue when compared to any other form of music streaming or podcast distribution network. And more importantly, internet radio today can be created directly by each given station, e.g. Sirius can make their own website to host their shows. Mark Cuban’s Broadcast.com was supposed to be a centralized hub for all radio stations. But why would any station host there if they can just make their own website and cut out the middleman?
All of this is to say that Cuban is either a poor businessman, a shady one, or both. And I don’t think it bodes well for the would-be consumers of his new pharmaceutical company.
His dotcom-era company was a “radio on the internet” website (this was actually parodied in HBO’s Silicon Valley). As you’ve probably noticed, no one listens to radio on the internet because the entire point of radio is that it can be accessed by anyone with a radio signal, which is much easier to obtain than an internet connection and more importantly is free.
He then sold this doomed company to Yahoo. But not only that, he actually shorted the Yahoo stock that he received in compensation because he knew that his company was vaporware and as a result he got paid twice (once for the sale and then later because Yahoo shares tanked when they had to entirely write off his acquired company, among other dumb investments they made).
My single biggest Reddit pet peeve was how they would idolize people who absolutely did not deserve it (see also: old Elon Musk). And lately they’ve been giving Mark Cuban the same treatment. I’m sad to see it happen on Lemmy as well.
Mark Cuban made his billions by quite literally scamming Yahoo. Like say what you will about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, but at least they made products that people actually use. Then he followed the Trump path of making a shitty reality TV show which grossly inflated his business acumen. And now people are treating him as a saint for pedaling a new company that’s supposed to fix the pharma industry. First of all, he’s not doing this out of charity - it’s 100% strictly a business venture. And second, you know what would fix drug prices? Single payer healthcare. Like there are literally dozens of other countries that sell these same drugs for nothing because they have nationalized healthcare.
Tbf those rich people were simultaneously waging literal war (like with guns and everything) against their workers.
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Sounds good. Btw can you name a single Republican who supports Palestine? I can only seem to find Democrats. Just want to know when you help the Republicans win :)
This guy only posts articles calling out democrats, and does not mention republicans at all. So it’s definitely not implied that he supports one over the other. Especially when this specific line is the most popular wedge issue for conservative-aligned interests, despite once again democrats being substantially more progressive on this issue.
And whataboutism? The GOP is one of two parties in a two party system, with the other being democrats. So yes it’s natural that if you mention one party’s stance you would then also mention the other.
Also just lol at immediately responding with name calling. Btw can you name a single Republican that’s advocated for Palestine? Because I see a lot of Ds, but not a single R.
Just curious why your entire account is countless articles criticizing democrats for their Palestine stance while applying absolutely no scrutiny to republicans, despite republicans being infinitely more hardline pro-Israel?
The concept is fine, and I’m not begrudging people who use it. But purely from a financial perspective it’s not worth anywhere close to what Cuban sold it for ($5.7 billion in 1999 for a single company that had effectively no revenue by comparison). From my other comment - the biggest US internet radio company has a market cap of $250 million today and that number has pretty much only gone down.