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Sometimes, one bad decision is all it takes to turn things completely upside down. While that is true in one’s personal life, too, it’s often the case with businesses, where one bad call can bring all processes to a halt.

Members of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community have discussed such terrible decisions, after one netizen asked about what made successful businesses take a big hit or even go under. Netizens covered a bunch of different examples, pointing out exactly what led to the fall of the enterprises, so if you’re curious to learn more about the whys and hows, scroll down to find their stories on the list below.

#1

30 Companies That Were Successful Until A Single Bad Decision Wrecked Them Completely MTV stopped playing music.

ClaryClarysage , Enxyclo Studio Report

Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
Community Member
8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

THIS ONE HURTS! The shift from music to "reality" TV was so gradual none of us noticed until it was too late. And now old MTV is gone forever.

Ace
Community Member
Premium
8 months ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

In reality lots of people noticed but none of them really cared. Once the internet started growing the idea of having to watch whatever video somebody else decided at an given time became more and more anachronistic.

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Charles McChristy
Community Member
8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Because they turned int a reality TV channel once they released The Real World. It all went downhill from there.

James016
Community Member
8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

MTV Europe was amazing for teenage me. I got discover so many new bands and different types of music that I would have not had been exposed to. This was in 1989/1990 when we got Sky TV. When MTV split and we got MTV UK, it became garbage, playing the same few songs over and over.

persephone134
Community Member
8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Those early days made for some gloriously wacky, experimental television. I loved it back then. Learning English as a second language became my second nature.

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SCP 4666
Community Member
8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Back in my day MTV used to play music 🧓

Bob Brooce
Community Member
8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If I want to watch music videos I can do it on YouTube, where I do the programming and decide what music gets played. I'm not going down the rabbit hole, but I suspect that continuing to play Music stopped being a viable option for major profit once YT became a viable option for viewers. The only possible advantage I see with continuing to play music is that viewers get exposed to stuff they're not familiar with, but I was listening to radio long before MTV came along and I still listen to a local radio station. Others listen to Spotify or Pandora.

Panda McPandaface
Community Member
8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Stop being do d**n sensible Bob! Romanticise dude!

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tori Ohno
Community Member
8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Does anybody else remember the Friday night metal show they had? I can't even remember what it was called.

C .Hunger
Community Member
8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yes, I miss this. But MTV has always try to mirror or lead the youth culture - that's what the whole foundation of the channel was founded on. Say what you want, no one is going to sit through hours of music videos any more.

Lara Verne
Community Member
8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Ages ago. I remember how I tried to watch MTV back in 2004 and 95% of their content were "reality" shows. So, when did their downfall started?

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    #2

    Airplanes parked on a busy runway, representing successful companies facing change after poor decisions. Look at every single decision the Boeing executives have made over the past 5 years lol.

    thebriss22 , Ekky Wicaksono Report

    Gavin Johnson
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    As a Brit I looked at Boeing with envious eyes. I have mates who work at Airbus and at British Aerospace and they always seemed to be a step behind Boeing when it came to medium and long haul aircraft. Yep we’ve had Rolls Royce providing great engines but 737, 747, 757, 777, 767 through decades of air travel kinda overshadowed that. Then it all went Pete Tong. I’m now pleased to see Airbus products filling up the gaps left by Boeing.

    Nova Rook
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There was an excellent article in The Atlantic I believe where they explained how Boeing transitioned from being run by and for the engineers to being a company run by regular business executives. That change killed their culture and the company has been in a nose dive since.

    Scott Rackley
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Happens every time you put pencil pusher in charge of an engineering firm

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    Hippopotamuses
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    They seem to have McDonnell Douglas to thank for that.

    nottheactualphoto
    Community Member
    8 months ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Exactly. Boeing used to make excellent products. The "bad" aircraft have come since the McDonnell Douglas merger, thanks to the McDonnell Douglas executives who now run the company. Bean counters kíll.

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    Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    They haven't been doing well since the 777. That's pretty much the last airframe they introduced that hasn't had "problems".

    Geoffrey Scott
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Once the boardroom begins making decisions rather than the engineers that gave the company it's reputation.

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    CP
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Capitalism baby! What are are you all communists?

    James016
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    They should all be in jail for the 737 MAX.

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    #3

    Sears storefront in a shopping mall, displaying company logo and interior merchandise. Sears discontinuing their catalog in the early 90s but not entering online sales until much later and long after Amazon took over what they gave up.

    llcucf80 , Mike Mozart Report

    tori Ohno
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I stopped going to Sears when they turned into a garbage store with a help yourself shoe section and Walmart quality clothing. The only thing worthwhile were the tools, not even the appliances were good anymore.

    Glenn Milliken
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I'm a die hard Craftsman fan ever since I was a kid still am but their quality went down at the end.

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    UncleJon_TheMadScientist
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And trying to pretend to sell upscale stuff that wasn't as good as K-mart

    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    They also through away much of what they got from Craftsman. They used to make good tools that were reliable and fairly priced, but if a hand tool broke you get a good replacement. One day after spending 20 minutes unsuccessfully trying to get them to meet their legal obligation and honor the warranty on my tape measure I exchanged about $300 worth of hand tools between a few and 30 years old as a preventative measure.

    CP
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And then the Ayn Rand acolyte finished them off.

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    #4

    Blockbuster Video sign against a cloudy sky, symbolizing a company's unsuccessful decision affecting its success. Blockbuster’s decision not to pursue streaming services.

    Shortcuttrash , David Boté Estrada Report

    Tobias Reaper
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Netflix offered to sell themselves to Blockbuster for $50 million but they were laughed out of the room my how the turntables have turned

    Snazzy Smurf
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    If a time machine existed, Blockbuster would go back and reverse their decision.

    Verfin22
    Community Member
    Premium
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Netflix was the OG in streaming, but many other companies followed. DVDs, CDs, cassettes, 8-track , vinyl, etc. All have been replaced by better tech. Even TV's are equipped to just steam now. Bad decision at the time, but who still has something to play outdated media nowadays.

    Lady Eowyn
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    What do you mean TVs are equipped to just stream now? I watch over-the-air TV with an antenna. Maybe you've heard of those in history class?

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    #5

    GE Propulsion Test Platform plane on a clear day, illustrating impactful company decisions. Haven’t seen it yet but GE making Jack Welch CEO. GE was one of the gold star companies of the US, EVERYBODY wanted to work at GE because you’d be set for life. They took care of their employees, made a ton of money, made good products, what more could you ask for? Then Jack Welch came in and started firing people left and right, eliminating product lines, getting into finance, worrying about the stock growth.

    Fast forward to today where GE is now three separate companies: Healthcare, Energy, and Aviation. Jack Welch pretty much single handedly broke down a company that was started by Edison and made some of the greatest technological advancements in the last century. That man is the worst.

    girlsgirlie , widebodies Report

    Rose
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The Orange man is the worst.

    Strings
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    *sigh* not EVERY topic and post needs to have a denunciation of Trump

    MagicJacket
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Jack Welch sounds like the new CEO where I work.

    Sven Horlemann
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Well, following Edison, that fits.

    Sven Grammersdorf
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    They call him Jack Welch because he is able to squeeze the sweetest juice from his workers' mind grapes

    SouthernGal
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Are Welch and Musk related? s/

    CP
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Seems like another complaint about Capitalism. The point this post is missing is that the rich got richer which is the point of capitalism.

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    #6

    BlackBerry smartphone on white stones, representing companies impacted by bad decisions. BlackBerry for letting their arrogance think that Apple or Google couldn't challenge their majority in the smartphone market. Also, ignoring creating a smartphone without a physical keypad until it was way too late.

    billy_zef , Thai Nguyen Report

    Rika
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I miss my BlackBerry. I have essential tremors, writing a simple text with touch screen is a pain because I always accidentally hit the wrong letter and I have to stop and correct the spelling every second. I used to spend hours texting or chatting, but now I avoid it because of that. Physical keypads need to make a comeback.

    Ace
    Community Member
    Premium
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There are still a couple out there, you know. https://www.androidauthority.com/keyboard-phones-845839/

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    James016
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I used Blackberrys for work at the time, they did the job as it was mainly for email and PIN messaging (that became Blackberry messenger). My first blackberry had keyboard shortcuts to access the various apps on it and a clickable scroll wheel. It was very easy to use it. However it did not have a mic or speakers built in so I had to use a proprietary headset for it which was very uncomfortable.

    Marilyn Holt
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Agree. I loved my blackberry when I had one.

    Skip Reynolds
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    For texting I use the speech-to-text option. Sometimes have to correct a mistaken word (usually a homonym) but that tiny bit of doinking is FAR easier than tapping out an entire message.

    GalPalAl
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I still have a surprising number of Blackberries still in my possession. Wish they were valuable

    CP
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The movie Blackberry is really interesting. Worth a watch.

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    #7

    Vintage camera film rolls from once successful companies, like Kodak and others. Two obvious cases come to mind:

    1) Kodak (remember the film brand?) invented the digital camera in 1979 but did not pursue that line because they thought it would hurt film sales.

    2) Blockbuster Video had an opportunity to merge with Netflix to manage online streaming content, but declined. Blockbuster was sure that video rental would never end.

    Wabash90 , Markus Spiske Report

    James016
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    In Harrow, UK there used to be a massive Kodak factory. It's now houses and flats.

    Shaggy
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Rochester NY. Had family that worked there for 20 years... same...

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    Charles McChristy
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    This is like Sony dropping the ball with portable music. Once the iPod came out it was all over for them. I even bought a Sony mp3 player to try and support them, but their best was only 20 gigs while the iPod was 80gigs and had a color screen.

    Snazzy Smurf
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    These 2 companies paid dearly for their decisions.

    Trisec Tebeakesse
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There is still a "Land Boulevard" in Cambridge, MA. Only the old-timers know what used to be on that street.

    Ravenkbh
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Digital cameras and streaming are just fads. They'll be gone by next year.

    Sacred Panda
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Wasn't NASA inventing digital cameras so they could take pictures on the moon?

    Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    One of my old roommates was from Rochester. Home of Kodak. He got a firsthand view of that collapse. A lot of people in that town depended on that factory.

    David
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Rochester is a city of a quarter million people, not a small town, and both Xerox and Bausch & Lomb were larger employers at the same time than Kodak. Bausch & Lomb moved to New Jersey, Xerox collapsed. And yes, it lost 25% of its population in a 15 year period during the collapse period (more due to Xerox than Kodak), but the city today is a major center for Tech Start ups (2 top 100 Engineering schools, 1 of them in the top 50 are there, as well as quite a few universities in the region). This is on multiple Fortune 1000 companies and a Fortune 500 company HQ, and is a major center of beer production in the North East of the US.

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    Hippopotamuses
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Kodak actually invented the original digital camera in 1975, not 1979. They thought that they had 10 years before there was any threat to their film based business. The were very wrong. https://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2012/01/18/how-kodak-failed/

    BrunoVI
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Who do you know with a digital camera? Mine is my phone. Eastman Kodak was a chemical company, and Eastman Chemicals is still an absolute beast of a company. What they successfully did, whether by foolish luck or not, was dodge the dead-end digital-camera industry and focus on what they did well.

    nottheactualphoto
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    A phone is OK for casual snapshots, but anyone who does serious photography uses a digital camera. Yes, in 2025.

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    #8

    30 Companies That Were Successful Until A Single Bad Decision Wrecked Them Completely My Pillow dude comes to mind, mixing extreme politics with business.

    gingermonkey1 , Chad Davis Report

    Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Mike Lindell is going to end up back where he started. Now if we could just deport Elon Musk back to South Africa after Tesla implodes and craters.

    CatD
    Community Member
    8 months ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Apparently Canadian provinces have cancelled contracts with Starlink, and European countries have cancelled with SpaceX.

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    Ace
    Community Member
    Premium
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    HAd to look it up, really funny. He claimed that the Chinese had interfered with the 202 election to stop Trump winning, challenged anyone to prove him wrong. Was ordered to pay $5 million when someone did exactly that. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65350125

    Rose
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Big fan of the Orange man

    Cammy Mack
    Community Member
    8 months ago

    This comment is hidden. Click here to view.

    You're boring, talk about something else.

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    Geoffrey Scott
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And, as Musk is finding out, same. Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.

    Snazzy Smurf
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    His net worth is $0.00 due to this shenanigans.

    Regina Holt
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I thought his net worth was a negative number at this point.

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    Verfin22
    Community Member
    Premium
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Guy might be a lunatic, but I love My Pillow. It's the only one I can sleep on.

    Lady Eowyn
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The sales people in Bed Bath and Beyond told people they were c**p.

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    Eduardo
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    What did Elon do wrong?

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    #9

    Social media apps displayed on a smartphone screen. I still laugh about tumblr's decision to ban all adult content on their website...which was like 95% of their active user base.

    PrimalMoose , Tracy Le Blanc Report

    Rika
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Yes! They used to be considered a safe place for fanfiction writers to share their works at a time when big fanfiction websites banned adult content. Myself and everyone I knew on there quit as soon as they made the decision, I'm actually surprised they still exist.

    Kira Okah
    Community Member
    8 months ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's actually better than it was 10 years ago, quieter but the crazy toxic isn't there so overall much more enjoyable.

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    CP
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    We are such a prudish society in public. So much shame.

    Kira Okah
    Community Member
    8 months ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And yet adult content is still around, with warning tags required ofc, because for the most part it never went away. It's more accepted now, to an extent, and the site is much less toxic after the ban exodused the toxic. It's actually my preferred platform for anything that doesn't go onto my formal domain, like fanworks.

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    #10

    30 Companies That Were Successful Until A Single Bad Decision Wrecked Them Completely "Our office is returning to in office 5 days a week to scare off talented introverts and attract psychopaths" -lots of companies with job posts today.

    funlickr , ArthurHidden Report

    Spidercat
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Hang on, since when did working a 5 day week from an office become an indicator of psychopathy?

    Upstaged75
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I'll never go back to an office. I can do my work from anywhere. I won't even apply to jobs that require it. A lot of people feel the same way. Companies are missing out on people like us. Too bad for them.

    MagicJacket
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My company proved we could function just as well, if not better in many cases, fully working from home. So what is the new CEO doing? Sending people back to the office, but being a "nice guy" and making it only 4 days a week. The ONLY reason for this is to justify the real estate leases the company has on office space, which for some stupid reason they decided to renew instead of saving a LOT of money with the WFH model.

    nottheactualphoto
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    One of the reasons I quit when I did is because they were making us "return" to the office. One of the reasons I took the job is because it was said to be fully remote, which made it possible to accept the less-than-great salary.

    Earonn -
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Love the office and honestly, doubt that I'm a proper psychopath. But surely true about the introverts. Or people with kids. Or people with disabilities. Or pets. Or nasty commutes. Or.... I have a couple of colleagues who only stay because we don't have to come to the office.

    Dan
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I was dreading returning to the office, but it hasn't been THAT bad. Obviously there are negatives, I caught a cold the 2nd week and the commute is annoying, but one huge positive is my work is 20 minutes away and my home is all mine again. No more home office where work would stare at me all evening and all weekend.

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    Eduardo
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I'm in mine 5+ days a week. I must be really wacky.

    Neb
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I hate going to the office. No one from my team works in the same office, so no valuable collaboration is happening. I am introvert, and most of my communications limits to hello, bye, what perfume are you wearing, we are out of coffee and similar small talk. However, people are loud on calls, loud when chatting in the breakroom and so on. Office temperature - we are sorry if you don't like it.

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    #11

    30 Companies That Were Successful Until A Single Bad Decision Wrecked Them Completely Delivering ‘shareholder value’. Boeing, Intel, Blizzard and Ubisoft to name a few. Companies need to deliver value for their customers instead, the shares and dividends will follow.

    Vargrr , Getty Images Report

    DC
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And their employees! Any and every company has the task, given to it by the society that created and provided the environment they can thrive in, to spread wealth, not spread bare survival. The lowest-earning ones need to be taken most care of, and shielded from more ups and downs than the top earners, who shouldn't even feel pressured, but internally obligated to ... make their company spread wealth within their employees. Shareholder value being the only, or main, target metric simply isn't sustainable, ignores the needs and realities of the world in which companies exist. And yet, a looters' mindset is the dominant shared quality of CEOs everywhere, regardless of any else. Fück that!

    BrunoVI
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    This is exactly what Enron did. They made financial arrangements to boost asset listings for their stock prices while not having nearly as much product and far more debt than they appeared to.

    nottheactualphoto
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Thank you for keeping this word alive. I wait for the day when the exclamation mark is unnecessary.

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    Ben
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I have a MBA and the main thing they always say is a corporations main purpose is to deliver shareholder value. It is not a new philosophy. Been that way forever I think.

    Roxy222uk
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It is literally the law that they have to deliver value for their shareholders. Otherwise the whole system would fall down because buying shares would be meaningless. I'm not saying its a good thing, the law needs to be changed so that, for example, a company **has** to prove it's not harming the environment, but it is the law right now.

    CP
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    But will it follow quickly enough for my huge bonuses that I don't need because I have more money than I can spend while people starve?

    Geoffrey Scott
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Another main logic lost to the mists of time. Take care of the folks who work for you, the quality, reputation, and shareholder return WILL follow.

    azubi
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    You sweet summer child. They don't need long-lasting customer value, they need to make big money once so they can buy a government. You've got a very romantic view on capitalism.

    MagicJacket
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Shareholder value and increased stock prices is ALL the new CEO of my company cares about. Hundreds of people laid off, career employees let go while he hires younger, cheaper workers to replace them. Psychopathic shark, this guy.

    B
    Community Member
    8 months ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    These companies had literally made billions BEFORE they became greedy and wanted even more. They (in gaming companies' cases) delivered less and instead began to charge over the odds for the same services, or offer pay-to-win options. This invariably happened after new CEOs were brought in to give the company a more 'business-like' approach. The people who made their games so popular were usually let go as a result. Fark them to hail, I say.

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    #12

    Elegant jewelry display in a store window, showcasing gold necklaces and bracelets. Gerald Ratner, CEO of The Ratner Group, operated a popular and successful jewelry business in the UK in the 1980s. He managed to sink his entire business enterprise in under ten seconds when he made a public TV appearance and joked that his company's products were "total c**p".

    The value of his business dropped by about *half a billion pounds* in the immediate aftermath and almost went completely out of business.

    ThadisJones , Ibrahim guetar Report

    John Monteith
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    He was at a conference. And said. People ask me how we can sell crystal decanters and glasses for £5; it’s because they’re c**p. And people ask what the difference between a prawn sandwich for £3.99 and our earrings at the same price. I say the earrings will last longer. However a couple of journalists were there And next day headlines in the papers Rather says his stuff is c**p

    Andie Day
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Well, he was just sayin' it like it was.

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    #13

    30 Companies That Were Successful Until A Single Bad Decision Wrecked Them Completely TVs in a quiet restaurant.

    I can understand TVs in a sports bar, but for the love of spaghetti, leave them OUT of the restaurants!

    I used to carry a [TV B Gone](https://www.tvbgone.com/cfe_tvbg_main.php) until people started getting wise and disabled the remote input.

    At one restaurant, on a date, there was music and conversation, and the TV in the corner droned along as everyone tried to ignore it. Then one guy got up and unplugged it, and the whole restaurant clapped!

    calladus , Ana Petrenko Report

    Gavin Johnson
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    We’ve got several pubs to choose from in our marketplace. Pubs for football, pubs for live music, pubs that are a bit ‘lively’, pubs for food & family time but my personal favourite has no TVs, no jukebox or piped music, no pool table, mobiles must be on silent and if you wish to take a call you got out to the back of the pub. It’s just got the sound of folk chatting and drinking. Oh yeah, no Wi-Fi either 😀 🍺

    ucp
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I recently spent a weekend in London with my wife. In one pub, I noticed a group of four 20-somethings, all holding onto their phones the whole time. They’d take a sip of their pint, say a word or two to their friends, then go back to their screen. All four of them. In another place, a group about that age came in, sat down for about half an hour on their phones (using the Wi-Fi, as this pub was in an old railway arch), then left without buying anything. Web access has its place, but I strongly believe that pubs should be about conversation and community (as well as a nice drink/food experience, obviously).

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    Eduardo
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I'm with you on this 100%

    Matt Blakeley
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    No one clapped. No one ever claps.

    Randy Sanders
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I can't stand TV. Mindless prattle.

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    #14

    Hands holding beer glasses in a bar, representing successful companies' decisions. Changing the recipe of Schlitz Beer to cheaper ingredients. In 1970 it was the #2 Beer in the country and by 2000 it was extinct.

    Impossible_Contact_7 , ELEVATE Report

    BrunoVI
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Love the way the Europeans that run this place have no idea what Schlitz looked like.

    Khavrinen
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    ( Or maybe they just couldn't face the horror of actually putting up a picture of the real thing. )

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    Timbob
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Still, it took 30 years !

    GalPalAl
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    When I grew up in the 80's Schlitz was the beer people would drink because they didn't have money to buy something that tasted good, or they would still get beer at 18 on the cheap. I don't ever remember Schlitz being thought of as tasty or highbrow

    nm
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Any time I visited US, back in the 70s, I was drinking Schlitz.

    Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
    Community Member
    8 months ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Not quite, the brand is owned by PBR because "How you gonna run a respectable establishment without Schlitz Malt Liquor?!?"

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    #15

    RadioShack storefront, showcasing company branding, illustrating a decline after business decisions. Radio Shack trying to compete with Best Buy in bigger ticket consumer electronics rather than sticking to what they did best.

    Asleep-Phase-9146 , Ryan McKnight Report

    Rinso The Red
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And now Best Buy is going the same way

    Susan
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And I've stopped going there, too. Used to go all of the time.

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    David Sallis
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I stopped going to Radio Shack when they started asking for personal information (phone number, IIRC) at check-out

    GalPalAl
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I always got the feeling that radio shack saw itself as a nerdy techie with no friends because the stores always felt a little off

    Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    They were selling high end stuff in the 80s. What you never heard of the Tandy TRS-80?

    Tropical Tarot
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That was the computers I learned on in high school because they gave them to us for free.

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    UncleJon_TheMadScientist
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Its precisely what happened to them, that and thinking they could compete in the cellphone market while abandoning their hardcore customers all those of us that like to build electronic stuff... The profit margin on all that little stuff on the pegboard was huge, the profits on bigger and name brand stuff was practically non-existent, Their in-house brands made more money than the name brands and quite often wer same or better quality.

    Brian Droste
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There is a Radio Shack still in business in Rushville IN.

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    #16

    Woman holding a smartphone, using a Nokia device in a casual outdoor setting, symbolizing companies' past decisions. Nokia embarking with Windows for their smartphones


    Microsoft ruining everything they touched in order to get cool: Skype, Skype for Business, Hotmail, IE6, OneDrive, aQuantive, Danger Inc., Band, Bing, Bob, Groove Music, Cortana Speakers, Zune and so many others.

    UrbanCyclerPT , JÉSHOOTS Report

    Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Microsoft only does one thing well. They make an OS.

    nottheactualphoto
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    MS makes a poor OS. But enough people have become accustomed to it, and to the pain, that they think this is normal.

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    James016
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I had a Nokia Windows phone and it was actually very good.

    CP
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The phone wasn't the problem. They were late to the game and didn't have a good app base.

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    B
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I despise Microkock so hard. They force regular updates that nobody wants or needs, break existing services in order to provide 'enhanced' ones that don't work, have built-in redundancy in various products (X-box is a prime example), and keep chasing the buck instead of caring about customers. I cannot believe that in all the years they've existed, there haven't been any viable competitors. But then, there probably have, and they've been bought out by these same muppets. I will never again in my life buy another of their products.

    Skip Reynolds
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Microsoft's motto is "If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is."

    George D
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Strangely enough, they made enough good moves to be relevant to this day and, just recently, was the most valued company in the world (depending on share price fluctuations).

    Norm Gilmore
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I enjoyed having Groove Music on the laptop. Sorry it went.

    Rika
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I love Nokia, but I agree. My friend had a Windows Phone, it was actually good, Cortana was cool. But it was at the time when Pokemon Go was released, my friend was so upset about it and other gaming apps not being available that he went back to Android. (Nokia did go back to Android too, their phones are back to being awesome!)

    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    They should have used the same drag and drop method as Windows Explorer, but my Zune HD is an excellent piece of hardware. It's the first thing I ordered from Amazon 12 or 15 years ago, and it's still the MP3 player I use while driving if I'm not listening to the radio.

    Glasofruix
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I've imported mine from the us (had to pay customs on a second hand item...), zune was a great mp3 player only plagued by microsoft's stupid decision not to release it outside the US market. That and janky zune software needed to transfer files to it.

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    #17

    30 Companies That Were Successful Until A Single Bad Decision Wrecked Them Completely 1) Sears saying they wouldn’t take Visa or Mastercard, only Discover. Never shopped there again.

    Sigjkr , Mike Mozart Report

    CP
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Sears did start the Discover card.

    Catmom
    Community Member
    8 months ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And could have offered benefits for using it while allowing other cards. Instead, they made it too difficult to shop there.

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    Graham Berry
    Community Member
    7 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Sears biggest downfall was when they stopped doing layaway sales. A lot of people are willing to pay overtime for something they can't afford to pay for up front.

    ucp
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Marks and Spencer here in the Uk used to refuse to take any credit card other than their own charge card (debit was fine). Eventually they saw that people were moving away from cash and cheques.

    Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Are there any people out there who EVER had a Discovery card? I'm 44yo and I worked in the service industry for years and I think I've seen a dozen maybe.

    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Discover was the first credit card I had. IIRC they were the first to offer 1% (or more) back as a reward, and they were willing to give credit to a young couple whose credit history was still limited to utility bills.

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    #18

    30 Companies That Were Successful Until A Single Bad Decision Wrecked Them Completely Susan G Komen hired Karen Handel after her failed bid for GA gov on an anti abortion platform. Karen convinced the founder that defunding Planned Parenthood mammograms would increase donations from the right.

    They didn’t realize how many of their donors were not conservatives. Massive PR debacle and wave of donors asking for refunds.

    So Komen said ‘oops, that was a bad move so we’re NOT defunding Planned Parenthood mammograms.

    Conservatives then asked for donation refunds and non conservatives stayed away.

    The nonprofit went from the most trusted name in charities to shuttering most of its local offices and reducing its revenue close to -60%.

    lizzzgrrr , valeria_aksakova Report

    BrunoVI
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Nothing in this even resembles reality. What killed SKG was the realization on all sides that it was a scam: only 13% of money raised went to treatments, screenings or research. Most of the rest went to self-promoting "education" like making pro athletes wear their particular shade of pink. Planned Parenthood doesn't even do screenings; they only make referrals. Given Planned Parenthood's militant promotion and defense of birth-control medicines that are no longer available because they caused nine-fold increases in breast-cancer rates, why use a birth-control/abortion clinic operation for referrals for breast cancer? (And THAT'S even in the 13%!) All this is why SGK fell much more in subsequent years.

    Kit Black
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    You can't post facts on this site.It offends everyone!

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    #19

    30 Companies That Were Successful Until A Single Bad Decision Wrecked Them Completely Enron commiting fraud on a massive scale. Granted, it's also the only thing that made the company in the first place.

    anon , Hanne Therkildsen Report

    Geoffrey Scott
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The start of the 1920's type hubris. Man, we need another FDR.

    Steve
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The Worldcom fraud was bigger than Enron's.

    les
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    they paid a farmer in orkney 5g a month to put an enron sticker on a windmill in the mid-late 90s

    #20

    Laptop displaying Google and Yahoo search results for "I feel lucky," illustrating successful companies' online presence. Yahoo had an opportunity to acquire Google for around $1M but decided not to. Since then, Yahoo, which was once a tech giant, saw a significant decline over the years and was acquired by Verizon in 2017 for about $4B. Fast forward to today, Google is now a powerhouse worth around $2T.

    livaoexperience , seosmarty Report

    Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There were search engines all over the place back then. Nobody knew which one was going to be the true chosen one. Webcrawler, Lycos, Altavista, Excite, Ask Jeeves, Dogpile. Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. There were dozens more. Google just nailed it.

    BrunoVI
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Google won out because it was ad-free. Once they drove everyone to irrelevance, BAM! More ads than you can choke down.

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    George D
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Well, they did also buy a 40% stake in Alibaba, which essentially saved their as*.

    #21

    Vintage computers displayed on a table, showcasing past technological decisions by successful companies. Osborne Computer began showing off its next-generation computer when it wasn't ready yet. Everyone canceled orders for the in-market model in anticipation of the new one, which tanked the company.

    chickenmantesta , Wolfgang Stief Report

    BrunoVI
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Funny that Osborne's screw-up seems to be more famous than Commodore's. In the 1980s, Commodore had a death grip on home computers that made Apple look like chumps. They abandoned the computer their own developers had come up with and instead decided to simply mass-produce a computer designed by a Spanish company, Amiga. Amiga was a cool computer, and very powerful for its day, but it wasn't backwards compatible nor compatible with Commodore's own hardware, and Commodore buyers had bought what in today's money would be thousands of dollars worth of peripherals. Angry Commodore owners refused to invest in Amigas and went for Apples and Windows instead, and the greatest computer company that ever was became a smoldering trashheap.

    Zaach
    Community Member
    8 months ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It was a little more complex than that but the main complaint from the people who worked there was the new CEO - he stopped advertising. The Amiga was an amazing machine and, for a while, was the only home computer that produced amazing graphics. I kept my Amiga until 1999 - I finally built a PC from internet parts stores. (my hatred for Apple knows no bounds and is still with me from 1986) *Edit: there was just no software for the Amiga - I agree about the lack of backwards compatibility with the C=64 was a huge mistake; when I migrated to the Amiga I had a couple hundred programs for the C=64, sigh!

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    joseph legatt
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That's pretty much the norm for everything today. It's not quite ready yet but lets sell it anyway and fix it later.

    Lee Gilliland
    Community Member
    Premium
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That's because they discovered we could be used as their beta testers.

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    Tim Douglass
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    To be more accurate, it was somewhat the straw the broke the camel's back. Osborne was already in deep trouble because of developmental delays and cost overruns combined with bad management. I did love my O-1 though! It died in a house fire 15 years ago and I still shed the odd tear over it.

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    #22

    Exterior of a Target store with parked cars in front, illustrating a company's decision impact. Target opening stores but not infrastructure in Canada and also doing no research on why Canadians shop at Target in the US.

    SniperTeamTango , Shabaz Usmani Report

    Hemminsleifwa E
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    So, why do Canadians shop at Target in the US?

    The Starsong Princess
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Because they had things you couldn’t get in Canada at good prices. Excellent home goods. They did not offer these things when they opened in Canada.

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    JL
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Can we get some Canadian Tire action in the US?

    JSD
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Target made many mistakes when expanded into Canada. They bought out old Zeller's department stores, some of which weren't suited to become Target and were located in areas no longer desirable for retail, IE older plazas and such. Also, they didn't have the infrastructure for warehousing and trucking built up sufficiently and the stores has bare shelves and higher prices.

    Carrie B
    Community Member
    Premium
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And totally over saturating the market. A ridiculous number of stores.

    H R
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Why does target need to make infrastructure in Canada?

    CP
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Logistics and warehouses. You have to stock the stores efficiently.

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    #23

    Error message on Myspace site, depicting a technical issue affecting successful companies' decisions. MySpace limited you to 10 photos that you had to rotate out after the limit.

    Facebook let you upload unlimited photos in April 2005.

    Immediately everyone I knew tried to get their college email address credentials so that they could sign up for the Facebook and post/see pictures after every party.

    And then in October Facebook, to add insult to injury, let you tag people and that was the end of MySpace. Now not only was Facebook where photos from the party were posted but you would also be tagged so that created a viral incentive to connect to people and sign them up for the Facebook website which amplified the social network effect exponentially. (You don't want people tagging you in photos that you don't know about do you?! Better sign up and review those tags.)

    MySpace was already beyond irritating by letting everybody play a different song in the Background causing you to want to rip your ears out of your head from 19 different Limp Biskit songs playing simultaneously but I think they could have survived long enough to disable auto-play music if they had simply not put a limit on photo count.

    im_thatoneguy , Remko van Dokkum Report

    B
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Facepalmbook is also a bit c r a p really.

    Mel in Georgia
    Community Member
    Premium
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I met friends on MS that I still have today. You don't really meet people on FB and there's so much BS you have to scroll through. Barely use it today.

    Charles McChristy
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I meet people from FB quite often, but not nearly as much when MS was a thing. You could look for a date on Friday morning and have one by Noon. They were not the most stable of interactions, but any port in a storm.

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    Rika
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I signed up to FB because one of my teenage female friends who was on there kept being hit on by Christian men twice her age, she begged me to be "in a relationship" with her so that they would back off: lesbians scared them. I hated how unpersonal the whole thing looked. I loved my fully customized MS profile and actually talking with people who shared common interests rather than posting a ton of pictures of myself. I moved to FB for good because of the games. Now that they don't have games anymore, I couldn't care less about it.

    Panos Panic
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Myspace was verly slow, that was the biggest problem

    Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    LMAO! Clap clap clap for whoever wrote that!

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    #24

    30 Companies That Were Successful Until A Single Bad Decision Wrecked Them Completely Maybe not *worst* decision but generally bad business is to give the consumer too many options. Like a sandwich place with 100 sandwiches on the menu. In reality, most of them are similar with one thing subbed for another. It's confusing for consumers, servers and the kitchen, annoying for everyone, and it slows turnaround down driving down revenues.

    Kramereng , Paul Sableman Report

    Charles McChristy
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    At a low point in my life I worked at a Greek/Italian restaurant that also had bbq ribs and southwest eggrolls, among other things not anywhere near Greece or Italy.

    nottheactualphoto
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Anything you want as long as it's chicken. And I hope you like a big noisy restaurant.

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    Panos Panic
    Community Member
    8 months ago

    This comment has been deleted.

    SirWriteALot
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I also hate those options where you have multiple steps, then add sauces and other stuff, then the sides ... if it is too complicated to express your food wish in one regular sized sentence then it is too complicated.

    Geoffrey Scott
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That's one of the issues I have with craft breweries/restaurants. Go in, look at a chalk board for a beer, all kinds of weird names. Finally told the waiter "I want a beer I can chew(dark), but not an alcohol content so high I can't legally drive home."

    nottheactualphoto
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My local uses a chalk board, but they only have 10 taps. And the beers are labeled (besides the goofy name) as being a "kolsch" or "IPA" or whatever.

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    #25

    30 Companies That Were Successful Until A Single Bad Decision Wrecked Them Completely Blizzard deciding to make every game just a c***py platform for micro transactions without focusing on making a fun game.

    They haven't felt the full effect yet but after Diablo 4 and overwatch 2, I know a lot of people (including myself) who will never buy another Blizzard title. They rode on the coat tails of their early 2000s staff for as long as they could. (I know it's Activision now).

    AlwaysForgetsPazverd , Arthur Ivanov Report

    B
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I think they're actually owned by Microsoft now (or the sale is pending or something, as of April 2025), which makes them suck even more. I loved Blizzard and all their products years ago, so it's incredibly sad that they've become such a disgrace in the industry.

    Floeckchen
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Blizzard, Bethesda, Bioware... the last decade wasn't very great for them. All of them had major fallouts with their fanbases...

    Sam Trudeau
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And the TF2 bootleg Overwatch is a very obvious clone, with just some women characters and fifteen characters who all have the same class (ex: multiple versions of the Heavy Weapons Guy)

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    #26

    30 Companies That Were Successful Until A Single Bad Decision Wrecked Them Completely Atari delayed the release of the 7800 by half a year as it tried to renegotiate royalty rates paid to cartridge developers.

    In the meantime NES launched and took the market.

    The 7800 had comparable tech and could also play all of the old 2600 games too.

    jeffbell , Alex Handy Report

    Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Yeah, no. The NES was a better console. And it comes down to one thing nobody talks about. The controllers. Have you ever handled a 7800 controller? They were still using JOYSTICKS! And they were spongier than the OG 2600 joysticks. The NES control pad was absolute perfection at the time. There are millions of them out there to this day that are pushing 40yo and they still keep going.

    Sam Trudeau
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Then with the N64 (for Nintendo) joysticks came back, with D-pad. And I have used a 40yo NES, finicky, but functional

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    JSD
    Community Member
    8 months ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It was supposed to come out in 1984, Atari was bought out by Jack Tramiel. He decided Atari should be a computer company, not a gaming console company and shelved the 7800 even though thousands were made. Atari never paid the company that developed the system for them, GCC, as Time Warner, previous Atari owner, and Jack Tramiel fought over who should pay. Eventually an agreement was reached and they decided to release the console in May 1986.

    George D
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Ghosts 'n' Goblins on the NES was so much fun. Then came Mario Kart. Game over, Atari.

    Brian Droste
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Before the 7800, I am pretty sure there was a 5600 version of Atari also.

    Floeckchen
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    5200 but yes. And it was way too huge... also got released in the midst of the video game crash of '83

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    #27

    30 Companies That Were Successful Until A Single Bad Decision Wrecked Them Completely I always think of TWA Airlines.

    TWA was a legacy airline from the earliest days of airlines. However, after deregulation in the 70's, they were struggling to compete. Desperate for cash, they allowed corporate raider Carl Icahn to purchase majority ownership of the airline, which provided some much needed cash.

    Included in the takeover agreement was a small clause that required TWA to sell tickets to any of Icahn's companies at-cost, meaning zero profit. It sounded like maybe TWA would give a few seats to some corporate travelers.

    Nope. One of Icahn's companies was a travel agency, and they sold huge numbers of tickets to the general public below market value and for zero profit to the airline. Flights would be 100% full and make no money. Hamstrung by the inability to adjust fares to make a profit, the airline was forced to cut costs, cut or eliminate popular services and benefits, and cease flying on some routes altogether.

    Eventually TWA could not survive and it was bought by American Airlines in 2000.

    drsameagle , Alan Wilson Report

    James016
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    They double booked us on one flight, people wanting us to move as they also had tickets for out seats. We had tickets for those seats as well. Took a while to resolve and delayed the flight. The other people had to leave the plane. Only because we got there first.

    Catmom
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    On one hand, what a bad mess. On the other hand, I absolutely loved getting free airline tickets for volunteering when they needed to bump people off of flight. As long as I wasn't on a tight schedule, of course. Now it's an even worse bad mess and I don't fly at all.

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    George D
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    How about Pan Am? Still boggles my mind how something so ubiquitous with international flight dies on the vine.

    Stephanie A Mutti
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I think it was on the day that TWA went bankrupt and I had to get re-routed on a cross nation flight. They put me on a TWA. The plane was empty just about. One of my best flights!

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    #28

    30 Companies That Were Successful Until A Single Bad Decision Wrecked Them Completely No one listed Xerox? Sticking with copiers and not those computer thingies?

    anon , Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine Report

    DeShotz
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    For a very simplified background… In the early 70’s, Xerox PARC invented so many things that are integral to modern computing. Graphical User Interface, Ethernet, laser printing, postscript, WYSIWYG text editing/word processing, etc. They could have been THE player in the personal computing market. Xerox leadership decided that they were just a document company and did not do anything with what they invented. Cue a demo to Steve Jobs, which gave birth to Lisa and then the Mac, which in turn inspired Microsoft to copy and create Windows.

    Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    They're still around. They continue to do copiers and printers. Copiers and printers are the worst office machines ever BTW. So they're like a car company that only builds garbage trucks.

    Tom De Paul
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    What do you make copies on and what do you print documents with then?

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    #29

    30 Companies That Were Successful Until A Single Bad Decision Wrecked Them Completely Small scale. Our local pizza place did a slice meal ( big slice, fries, a dip and a drink) for 5 euro. A simple 1 euro increase absolutely k**led them. This was when cash was far more common and the psychology of just handing over a fiver was the ticket.

    AulMoanBag , Andrej Lišakov Report

    Gavin Johnson
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Showing my age here. Our local Bank’s pub used to have a 98p pint (see I told you I’m old) and you could buy 5 pints and sling the 10p in the fruit machine. When it went up they’d held it at 98p for so long it jumped to £1.04. The outrage! Now you needed £5.20 and that’s just not cricket.

    Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
    Community Member
    8 months ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Just had an American moment when I read that. I was trying to add in tip.

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    #30

    People walking towards the Intel logo at the company's headquarters, illustrating business decisions impact on companies. Intel's decision to forego purchasing ASML's EUV lithography machines until their competitors purchased all of ASML's production putting Intel years behind. To their credit Intel took delivery of one of ASML's machines about six months ago. These machines are so advanced that it will be another 18 months until Intel can manufacturer chips using these machines.

    Yupperroo , Clément Proust Report

    Bartlet for world domination
    Community Member
    8 months ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Trump wants everything manufactured at home, Intel is one of I think only two American chip manufacturers, Taiwanese mega chip producer TSMC is helping them - if it doesn't work out within the next two years, it's hopeless.

    nicholas nolan
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The CHIPS Act could actually fix this, but it's still going to take time. I hope the trump regime doesn't cancel any more CHIPS contracts like they did in New Mexico.

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    CP
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    ASML is one of those companies you only know if you are in the business. I am on the side that provides compressed gases to ASML. The semiconductor industry is insane when it comes to the quality they demand.

    nottheactualphoto
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I believe it. Fab facilities need to be MUCH cleaner than an operating room.

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    #31

    30 Companies That Were Successful Until A Single Bad Decision Wrecked Them Completely When Amazon was taking off, brick and mortar book stores were loosing business. Barnes and Noble made the sensible choice to downsize and closed many stores while developing an online platform. Borders, on the other hand, decided the best thing to do was build as many new stores as possible. When this didn't increase sales, they decided it was finally time to try online shopping. However, they decided to partner with Amazon and have them handle all of Border's online business, effectively handing all the extra revenue directly to their biggest competitor. Guess which store is still in business?

    SexyNeanderthal , John Loo Report

    Daune Tullina
    Community Member
    Premium
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Borders was a nuch better store than B&N

    nicholas nolan
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    We badly miss the local Borders to this day. The store were so much cleaner, and better laid out.

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    Earonn -
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And now people are returning to proper book stores because Amazon thought it a good idea to have their boss suck the smeg-covered d**k of the orange rapist....

    nottheactualphoto
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    If I could upvote more than once, you'd get an extra one for "smeg."

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    Charles McChristy
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    When tablets were first coming out I bought a POC for $100 and I've never been so disappointed. It was supposed to work with whatever software Borders was trying to push and the store was already long gone by the time I got the tablet.

    Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I remember the first time I heard of Amazon. I was at a brick and mortar store and I was asking if they had an old book I was looking for. The lady said "I don't think so but I'll check Amazon". That's when I found out what Amazon was. That must have been around 2000, 2001.

    GalPalAl
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    When Barnes and Noble changed because of Amazon, they stopped letting people read books. Am sure that didn't help much either

    Susan
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Buying online is convenient but can't compare to browsing around in an actual book store.

    #32

    When Circuit City lowered the pay cap and fired everyone making over the pay cap. No, wait that wasn't a single decision, they actually did it twice.

    Lunchbox7985 Report

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    #33

    Being ridiculously stingy about coupons! I once worked at a cafe and they had a buy one get one free ice cream advertisement in the local paper (which you can pick up for free anywhere around town). People were coming in all day with it and the place was packed. One girl couldn't find it in her wallet and was getting really upset so I told her it was fine and gave her the deal anyway. Later on I got screamed at for that. I can't imagine that the alternative-- refusing to give her the free ice cream-- would have been good customer service. I would have felt so awkward and horrible about doing that.

    Another time my mom and I went to a wrap place, each with our own buy one get one free coupon. They refused to give us each a free wrap because "we clearly came in together" even though we were paying separately and each had our own coupon. Never went back there again.

    RtimesThree Report

    SirWriteALot
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    "When we wrote 'free' we didn't actually mean 'free'"

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    #34

    Artesian Builds. Company CEO, Noah Katz, gets on their normal PC building live stream where they are going to give away a PC to one of their affiliates. Name gets drawn. Katz looks up the affiliate, reads out the metadata for the affiliate, decides this person isn't important enough, and rescinds the offer. All proudly live on stream.

    This happened on March 1, 2022. The company announced they were shutting down eight days later.

    LordShtark Report

    panther
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    He had all sorts of shady things going on and the livestream brought the company all sorts of scrutiny. Gamers Nexus did an investigation on it that blew the company up.

    #35

    THQ company logo on wooden wall, representing a business affected by a bad decision. THQ, once a respected game publisher, banked it's entire company on a drawing tablet accessory for consoles

    Didn't work out too well.

    AJ_BORDERCHUNT , Threeboy Report

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    #36

    Gary Kildall deciding to not accept IBM licensing terms for the OS for their next computer. Later launched as IBM PC. A small company accepted IBMs conditions and put together a small OS they bought from another company.

    The small company was Microsoft, and the rest is history. As areDigital Research and CP/M.

    anon Report

    Tim Douglass
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Which is especially bad since CP/M was a far better OS than MS-DOS.

    Harry Gondalf
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    yeah but cpm was an 8-bit os not 16-bit. cpm was pretty nice on an 8-bit 8080 or z80 machine. I miss cpm. but i like my intel i5 16 gb ram linux much better

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    JB
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Surprised I had to scroll this far to see IBM. When I was at university, they had a firm stranglehold on what was developing into the internet. But all it took was one person to say there was and would never be an appetite for a computer in the home. Nowadays, we carry devices with more computing power than IBM perceptually provided with their dumb terminals.

    Anonymous
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    ColdFusion made an excellent video about this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDIK-C6dGks

    #37

    GM abandoning the EV-1 instead of continuing to develop it.

    dazcon5 Report

    Tim Douglass
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That's a painful oversimplification. GM created the EV-1 strictly as a development and test platform. Once it had served that purpose it was shut off and they used what they learned to develop market-driven cars. It was never going to be developed farther and it wasn't practical to do so. Large-scale manufacturing is very different from a limited run of semi-custom vehicles.

    nicholas nolan
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    You could get a 3-sries BMW for cheaper, even after scale manufactuering by GM's own estimates, and gas was around $1.40 a gallon, national average. EV-1 was just ahead of its time.

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    Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The tech just wasn't there yet. The EV-1 was still using lead acid batteries. LEAD ACID batteries are a centuries old technology now. Battery tech needed another couple decades to develop.

    BrunoVI
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The basic problem with the EV-1 (and GM's subsequent electric cars which absolutely were a continuation of developing the EV-1) is that no-one wants to pay thousands of extra dollars for range anxiety and crappy power. The most hated man in the universe figured out that there was something about an electric car that very wealthy people would LOVE: instant torque. So he made insanely expensive, insanely high-performance sports car and used the profits from those sports cars to fund the infrastructure needed to make EVs work.

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    #38

    Kmart not owning the buildings they operated in. Yeah there was a lot of other factors for why Kmart is gone, but one of them was because they practically never owned a building they operated in.

    anon Report

    Hippopotamuses
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Kmart still exists. Just not in the US.

    Geoffrey Scott
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    But when they DID file, those same properties were SO well placed they got top dollar for them.

    #39

    A friend of my husband's owns a sports bar. A few months ago he offered $1 beers. The place QUICKLY became overloaded with homeless people and the regulars didn't like it and stopped going. Special didn't last long.

    Blondrina Report

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    #40

    Person wearing headphones, facing a blurred screen in a dimly lit room, highlighting the impact of business decisions. The company that makes the game Ark spent all their money on a failed electric car company.

    rageling , Fausto Sandoval Report

    #41

    Any time a popular local restaurant changes their hours every other week, people don't know even you are open and they just stop coming.

    anon Report

    Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Or when a spot starts cutting hours suddenly. I kid you not, I saw a sign on a place once: "We apologise to our regular customers but will no longer be open Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday." So how are you going to pay your lease when you are only open 3 out of 7 days a week?

    Michael Largey
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There are certain "restaurants" who don't really need customers as part of their business model. Capisce?

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    Wild Cream
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There’s a restaurant near me that does that. They don’t even follow the hours posted on the door. You kind of just need to walk by and see if they’re open every single time. (Can’t call, they never answer their phone). And they close at 2:30pm every day. If it wasn’t some of the best fish and chips in the whole world i wouldn’t even bother 😂

    Stephanie A Mutti
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There was a newer coffeeshop near my office who weren't opened on friday mornings... it wasn't a residential area so Friday is probably going to be the best day for traffic. Oh well. They closed not long after.

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    #42

    So this didn’t wreck the company completely per se, but did do a lot of damage - Merck rushed Vioxx to market because it was a first-in-class/blockbuster medicine, which is the Holy Grail of Big Pharma. If you have the one and only type of medicine on the market and it works, that’s basically a money-printing machine, and they got that with Vioxx. They chose to ignore FDA regulations and marketed it for something that it was not intended to be used for when applying for a license (Rheumatoid Arthritis) and the d**g reps were lying about safety data for cardiac risks. It ended up costing the company ~$5 billion in criminal and civil trials and FDA fines.

    I started working there at the end of the Vioxx payouts and the cuts to MANY benefits was staggering lol. Every time something else would go (including jobs) people would blame Vioxx.

    AkuraPiety Report

    CatD
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Also look up Fen-Phen. Weight loss combo d**g that caused heart value problems and pulmonary hypertension which will kíll you if untreated.The Fen-Phen settlement amounted to $3.75 billion.

    Geoffrey Scott
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    One of the casualties of that was a certain cold reliever called Saleto-D. Take one if you had a cold, it would blow your head clean for a work shift. Stuff was amazing, but, as a person in their 20's/30's it had no noticeable health effect. And to think I would chase it with a coffee.

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    john doe
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My mom was so pissed when they pulled vioxx, she had really bad arthritis and that was the only d**g that worked for her. But the health risks made me happy she stopped taking it.

    CP
    Community Member
    8 months ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The fine is just the cost of doing business in the US. I couldn't find what the profits from the d**g were, but sales were in the billions. It is an interesting story. They fudged the data just a little bit to make it look less risky and made an hilarious assumption about Naproxen (the d**g it was compared to). They hid 3 heart attacks from the study because they happened after a made up cut off date. They assumed Naproxen acted like aspirin and reduced cardio vascular episodes. That means the lower cardio rate in the Naproxen study is a decrease in risk not that Vioxx is an increase in risk. Fun fact, both increase the risk. The funny part is both the US and Canada have okayed the d**g after it was taken off market, because it was deemed worth the risk. If Merck had just been honest...

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    #43

    Aroma Cafe in LA charges a mandatory 15% "management fee" to every single bill. This is not gratuity for large parties, etc. 15% not including tax and tip! So shady and despicable.

    DecayingExponential Report

    Regina Holt
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The price of goods and services should be the price they list on the menu. You don't pay extra for management, every company has management.

    SirWriteALot
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Are you informed of this up front or is it added to the bill without you knowing?

    #44

    Microsoft focusing on television and sports instead of games when unveiling the Xbox One. The Xbox brand hasn’t recovered since.

    Johnny_Menace Report

    RamiRudolph
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Say what you will, but personally I'll take Xbox over PlayStation any day

    nicholas nolan
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Playstation controllers set of my carpal tunnel like nothing else.

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    #45

    The original Bed, Bath, and Beyond focusing on in-person brick-and-mortar store sales instead of an easy-to-use website for online sales.

    Outside_Performer_66 Report

    Lady Eowyn
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I always enjoyed going to Bed, Bath and Beyond's local store.

    nottheactualphoto
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Me too, for the browsing experience. I've never visited their website.

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    Michael Largey
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    They stopped offering those cutely packaged variety packs for us clueless husbands to buy for our wives.

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    #46

    There was a mongolian bbq chain in my town that offered $1 beer every evening starting at 5pm. The idea was you would come in, have a couple beers and then buy dinner. Nope. We sat there and just threw back beers for a few hours. That promo didn't last long and now the business is closed.

    hyperfunkulus Report

    CP
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That is easily fixed with just having the cost of beer included with your meal.

    Cammy Mack
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That's really strange. Who drinks without pairing it with the pleasure of eating?

    #47

    A local delivery company where I live. They had amazing wages and benefits. Every driver was clamoring to get a job there. The crew so big the only reason there were other delivery companies was so they didn't run foul of anti monopoly.


    Then they decided to review their payment structure and reduced the amount you got paid per haul across the board.


    Another big delivery company looking to get established in the area then offered the exact same wages they had previously offered. They lost 80% of their employees in the first month and even though they went back on the pay reduction they slowly died out over the next year.

    Bigbubba236 Report

    GalPalAl
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Sounds like delivery dudes

    Michael Largey
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    If you don't deliver for your drivers, they won't deliver for you.

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    #48

    American car companies declaring they will go all electric by a set date. Now I realize they have all pivoted, but they did this without vetting what the consumer truly wanted vs. being pretty much forced to go that route because of the government.

    They have all pivoted, as have all companies globally, except Toyota) to offer more hybrids (what it appears the consumer wants) with some ice and electric offerings. It is very interesting how all along Toyota kept saying hybrids were the answer for today.

    MusicMan7969 Report

    NJ P
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's still stupid to push all-electric without the charging infrastructure in place. Every gas station should have charging stations. Also need common electric plugs.

    john doe
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    BYD will bury them in the coming years, the American dominance over the auto industry is over, it's due to their greed and in ability to put out an affordable vehicle.

    Cammy Mack
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Toyota is a good company. A little timid when it comes to change, but their caution seems to pay off. Plus their manufacturing management is second to none.

    nicholas nolan
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    They are sadly crumbling. In five years the "reliability" title will belong to Honda, mark me.

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    #49

    THQ was one of the bigger publishers in video games. They held Darksiders, Saints Row, Destroy All Humans, and had deals with Disney, Dreamworks, Nickelodeon and the WWE.

    They developed the uDraw Game Tablet. A $70 drawing tablet accessory for the Wii, PS3 and 360. This tablet was a sales diester and single handedly killed THQ.

    The company went bankrupt and Nordic Games purchased big swaths of their IP. Today they make games under the name THQ Nordic, but original THQ died at the hands of the tablets.

    What is funny is obviously Nintendo went on to make the Wii U, another sales flub but obviously they must have taken some inspo from the uDraw.

    Jim777PS3 Report

    Cammy Mack
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Nintendo, out of everyone, has dddeeeeeeppp pockets. So deep, it should have been them to buy Star Wars, not that stupid mouse company.

    nicholas nolan
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    They don't have Disney deep pockets and they wouldn't have had a clue what to do with it. They might have even tried to do something truly boneheaded like make the Thrawn trilogy. The Rey-Finn-Poe trilogy has some problems(Canto Bite, wtf? Why k**l the pacing of your movie for that?) but the Thrawn trilogy at best would have been Exposition: A Star War Tale. And there's no way Nintendo would have given us Rogue One or Andor. Maybe we would have gotten The Mandolorian, but it would have likely been closer to the Boba Fett show(what a wasted opportunity that was) than the Mando we got. And no Galaxy's Edge? That would be awful.

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    #50

    Roundup weed killer bottles displayed on a store shelf, representing a notable company decision. Bayer acquiring Monsanto, completely underestimating the USA's willingness and ability to completely legally annihilate the same company they were protecting once it turned from US-owned to non-US-owned.

    zilkat_ , Mike Mozart Report

    CP
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That isn't a true telling of the story. The lawsuits were already on the books when Bayer bought Monsanto. US history is a mixed bag when dealing with corporations like this. Who knows which way this would have gone.

    #51

    Hiring Ron Johnson at JCPenny. He first decided to never have sales or coupons that fair pricing with no makeups just to make them down, didn’t work. People never got coupons or sales flyers so they never went in. It made sense logically but shoppers like to think they are getting discounts. He also thought he would make it cool place. It’s JCPenny. In a mall. It’s not going to be cool in the 2010s.

    He did great with Apple Stores but Apple customers, especially Apple Store customers aren’t JCPenny customers.

    h0sti1e17 Report

    Michael Largey
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Unlike Apple customers, JC Penney customers had a free will.

    nottheactualphoto
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    A JC Penney in a mall wasn't even cool in 1985, let alone the 2010s.

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    #52

    Company called Sandvine recently decided they would take their network traffic inspection and prioritization software and repurpose it to allow foreign governments to spy on their citizens.

    Got themselves sanctioned by the US government, they were then unable to buy the hardware their software was custom tailored for. They therefore couldn't sell their product anymore and torpedoed their revenue source.

    Laid everyone off and the C-Suite that pushed the decision got golden parachutes.

    Yay capitalism.

    Cartz1337 Report

    CP
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The US is only allowed to spy on its citizens.

    #53

    Sonos rushing an app release for a pair of s****y headphones. While not completely ‘wrecked,’ the damage has been impressive for such a short timeframe.

    baldwing Report

    Rod Stasick
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I was actually looking for this in this list.

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    #54

    This new trend of NFL teams going all in on someone and it's pretty much never worked out. First it was the Raiders for Gruden, then the Browns for Watson, and very likely the Jets for Rodgers.

    Granted, these places weren't exactly "successful" before, but none of them have even remotely moved the needle and they'll all take years to recover from.

    JBx89x Report

    #55

    Bud Light for putting someone's picture on a can of beer.

    deadmoney Report

    Earonn -
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Wait, was that the photo of a trans person? Oh no! How will the poor beer drinkers survive? Your kids get gunned down in school, your president is a rapist, but trans people on beer cans as a one-off marketing thing? The horror! Transphobes are such snowflakes...

    Deeelite
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It wasn't so much bc they're Trans, it was the commercial where they stated "im getting my period" that threw people off - this beer is marketed towards men. Men don't want beer associated with menstrual cycles

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    Eduardo
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Don't dismiss the beliefs of a majority of your consumers.

    Michael Largey
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." - conservative writer, H.L. Mencken

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    Robin
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    What's this about then?

    RamiRudolph
    Community Member
    8 months ago

    This comment is hidden. Click here to view.

    Serves them right. Good riddance.

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    #56

    Rainforest Cafe entrance at Trump Plaza, showcasing a company decision impact with exterior decorations and passerby activity. When Rainforest Cafe got rid of the live parrots. That was the only interesting thing about it.

    Outside_Performer_66 , momentcaptured1 Report

    Sanjana
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    think about how unethical that was though

    Michael Largey
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And their replacements kept pining for the fjords.

    Wild Cream
    Community Member
    8 months ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I liked the rain showers and giant animal animatronics :) that was cool

    Cammy Mack
    Community Member
    8 months ago

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    Something something something bad name in photo. Queue political fart noise

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