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> In fact for many, many years with Amazon making huge losses people predicted they would fail.

Amazon has been making huge losses for many years because they were reinvesting in expansion, which is very expensive for them. Amazon's investors understand and support these efforts.

That's different from something like Dropbox, where they can't get the majority of users to pay for the service: http://www.businessinsider.com/dropbox-ceo-drew-houston-grow...

The reason nobody else founded Dropbox was because they didn't have the luxury of running a lossmaking business for years on end.




That's the situation now, and nobody is thinking they're going to fail now. But back in the early days of Amazon the sentiment was different.


Yes having to make a profit limits your business model options.




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