Some educated guesses about the companies, products, and services that are facing down a terrible 2021

I think the Zoom take is overly bearish. I know they caution their take already, but still, while I'm sure the stock will dip, that really has very little to do with how the company does. In many ways this whole thing was perfect for Zoom.

Note, in the long term Zoom does not want people to continue using it for Yoga classes and birthday parties. Every one of those costs them money and makes them nothing. Zoom's actual, paying customers are businesses, I doubt many business are going to relinquish their hefty Zoom SaaS subscription anytime soon - clearly video conferencing software is a necessary part of their business tools, this pandemic has proved that to everyone.

So when the pandemic ends, Zoom enjoys the continued money from their many new customers (businesses), they get to be a verb (so that more business think instantly of Zoom when they are shopping for video conferencing software), and they get to shed off all those useless, bandwidth-sucking free tier users who go back to meeting in real life. That's exactly what they want.

I love these articles that Ars does every year. It might be kind of cynical, but it's also fascinating to see when they're right and when they're wrong.

I have mixed feelings about movie theaters. I do enjoy going to the occasional movie at the theater. The theaters here in LA are all pretty good viewing experiences. They all have stadium seating, decent sound, etc. Often they have assigned seating, so no need to get there early to get a good seat. Many have extras and most allow you to buy alcohol and bring it in to the theater. On the other hand, many also have the most obnoxious advertising before the movie. So it wouldn't be the end of the world for me if they went out of business. More of a, "Oh man, that used to be kind of fun. Oh well." I'm way more concerned about local restaurants we like, but most of those will probably be replaced by others eventually.

I hope that Oracle's ridiculous case dies. It's absurd that it's gone on this long. I wish Oracle itself would die as they are a toxic company, but that seems unlikely.

And DirecTV can suck it. Many years ago (before AT&T bought them), they called my home every day for something like 150 days in a row. I never once answered the phone, and they never left a message. They just kept calling and calling and calling. It was ridiculous. Eventually the Do Not Call list killed that, but I still hold that it's a kind of harassment to do that to someone. After the 30th call or so, you should just take the fucking hint. They don't want to talk to you.

As for the others on the list, I either don't know much about them, or don't have a feeling one way or the other.