@T.E.P., detailed post as always, but I might share my...

@T.E.P., detailed post as always, but I might share my views.

It's well know the data annotation industry is growing rapidly. But I think a common mistake many of us make (me included, previously), is to equate appen with the industry. Some people here have said over and over again, the industry is evolving rapidly but the clowns at appen aren't keeping up with new developments (gixxerboy was most vocal about this). Listen to the briefing again, mark was asked about the capabilities of scale ai and how appen intends to compete, he just shrugs by saying they are not focused on a specific area (computer vision) and their wide source of data gives them the advantage. (end of page 12 of transcript). So competitors have tech they don't, and they think not being focused in an area makes them special. Another example is middle of page 18, "it's likely that the nature of the projects will change, because the underlying solutions will change", this is admitting competitors like snorkel are taking their market share.

Google had ATH ad revenue yet their revenue/margins dropped. Seems to be the mega cap tech are taking their spend to competitors with better capabilities than them, hence why I said appen=/=the industry. Mega cap tech already have tons of data from them in the ad segment, and are likely using snorkel/transfer learning to proceed, whereas for the new projects they need appen for the initial data base to use for snorkel etc, this is what I think is happening. Appen needs a tech ceo, Mark is clueless on how to keep up, gixxerboy knows this point better than anyone here. I no longer hold it, the half year surprise was too much.