Yes it is being manipulated to high heaven. I have no problem...

Yes it is being manipulated to high heaven. I have no problem with shorters - Appen isn't the only company in this space thats getting smashed the whole sector is; if you're not already in a very established industry where this industry is still going through its foundational breakthrough mode.

But a simple SWOT

Strengths - customers are of the elite category and can not get any bigger and better. RLHF is the epicentre of A.I to commercialise. Big Tech only use RLHF. Industry leader.
Weaknesses - Revenue is highly concentrated in the elite category where 90% of total A.I revenue in the industry is tied to Ad spend and Web search. Market is too small to offset Digital Advertising business cycles.
Opportunities - AI industry begins to monetize new sectors other than Ad spend and Web search - like health, education and finance - the more breakthroughs there are the more opportunities for business moving forward
Threats - ongoing tech spend slowdown, higher for longer interest rates. continuation of reshaping balance sheet and more shrinkage. This is a threat because innovation takes a big hit where Appens data scientist count shrinks to save costs and this is very bad and can impact future revenue.

What is inane - competition. No this is not a problem like some zombies leads one to believe despite Tech spend slowdown Appen continues to win new projects with Big Tech
30% of revenue from Big Tech is now in Generative AI, October 23 was the highest revenue gain for the year out of China and model builders are using Appen 5x more than last year. It continues to win projects and this is not a sign of competition chewing into market share. But would like an update on that.