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Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money?

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Re: Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money?

#31

Post by hobby-coder-guy »

arjunvpaul wrote: post #18

From Businesses - small and large. Using the WhatsApp API. That alone is a multi-billion dollar opportunity. For example, people like my startup ( https://www.zoko.io ) provides software that enable folks to run any business on (only) WhatsApp. WhatsApp would make money by - charging for certain types of messages sent via the API (already doing it) - from ads on the WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram Platform that clic…

It’s just text messages with phone numbers as a user-id. What’s the big deal hype-man???

Re: Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money?

#32

Post by cecja »

sliq wrote: post #27

There is this THEORY (!) WhatApp is actually cross-financed by governments, so it can stay online as the biggest communication surveillance "device" in human history. We are talking about a 100% uptime free service that literally has become the center of human remote communication in major parts of the world. Encryption is a shady topic, and there is a realistic chance there is a backdoor in the methods WhatApp uses…

You just can't walk on cheese, dude.

Re: Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money?

#33

Post by Barrin92 »

sliq wrote: post #29
Barrin92 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Europe that is not true, from their official page "We do not share data for improving Facebook products on Facebook and providing more relevant Facebook ad experiences.Today, Facebook does not use your WhatsApp account information to improve your Facebook product experiences or provide you more relevant Facebook ad experiences on Facebook. This is a result of discussions with the Irish Data Protection Com…

What they say in official text is not automatically what they actually do. Example: maybe they dont sell data to Facebook, but to a middle-man company. And this company sells to Facebook. Disclaimer texts are shady things!

that would also be illegal under GDPR. Not to mention it's a misunderstanding about how Facebook works. Facebook does not sell data at all, they sell ad-space based on their own data.

Re: Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money?

#34

Post by fsflover »

Barrin92 wrote: post #33
sliq wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they say in official text is not automatically what they actually do. Example: maybe they dont sell data to Facebook, but to a middle-man company. And this company sells to Facebook. Disclaimer texts are shady things!

that would also be illegal under GDPR. Not to mention it's a misunderstanding about how Facebook works. Facebook does not sell data at all , they sell ad-space based on their own data.

> that would also be illegal under GDPR

Not a problem to Facebook: https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/#history

Re: Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money?

#35

Post by cyrrus »

arjunvpaul wrote: post #18

From Businesses - small and large. Using the WhatsApp API. That alone is a multi-billion dollar opportunity. For example, people like my startup ( https://www.zoko.io ) provides software that enable folks to run any business on (only) WhatsApp. WhatsApp would make money by - charging for certain types of messages sent via the API (already doing it) - from ads on the WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram Platform that clic…

Those are some big words but.... the chat market is flooded. I barely use Whats App as well as most people I know so they are far from ubiquitous.

Why then? Why not any other chat app, or even messenger with far greater reach and just as many resources?

Re: Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money?

#36

Post by Biganon »

the_arun wrote: post #30
rodonn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatsapp is end to end encrypted. Facebook is not able to see the contents of Whataspp messages.

end-to-end encrypted with encryption key managed by WhatsApp/FB. Users don't own the key.

I thought you generated the key pair on your device and never sent the private key, not even to WhatsApp? Isn't that the idea behind the Signal protocol, which WhatsApp uses?

Re: Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money?

#37

Post by Nextgrid »

WhatsApp is a loss leader that allows Facebook to infer the social graphs of people through their contacts list (even those that are not Facebook users) which they can then monetize, either directly (if they are Facebook users, by showing better-targeted ads) or indirectly (by using non-Facebook users as "gateways" to infer relationships between existing Facebook users which would then be used to better target ads).

Re: Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money?

#38

Post by jdeibele »

Facebook would like to see money from WhatsApp but it was far more important to them to block off a potential competitor.

WhatsApp could have provided services like Facebook or Instagram but cost a small amount of money each year. Maybe it would be per-user or maybe it would be a sponsorship, like what Discord is doing. Sponsor the local neighborhood group for $25/year, your high school class forum for $100/year (so you can show everybody "you made it big").

The key to doing something like that is network effects, which WhatsApp had in spades.

Probably it's inevitable that they would have descended into advertising and tailoring the site for advertisers instead of users.

Re: Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money?

#39

Post by Barrin92 »

fsflover wrote: post #34
Barrin92 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that would also be illegal under GDPR. Not to mention it's a misunderstanding about how Facebook works. Facebook does not sell data at all , they sell ad-space based on their own data.

> that would also be illegal under GDPR Not a problem to Facebook: https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/#history

not sure what the relevance here is. That user is complaining about not getting network data from Facebook which may not be covered by GDPR, rather than his personal data he stored on the service.

However giving your data to third parties without your explicit consent is without a doubt a violation of GDPR.

Re: Ask HN: How does WhatsApp make money?

#40

Post by bozzcl »

cyrrus wrote: post #35
arjunvpaul wrote: post #18

From Businesses - small and large. Using the WhatsApp API. That alone is a multi-billion dollar opportunity. For example, people like my startup ( https://www.zoko.io ) provides software that enable folks to run any business on (only) WhatsApp. WhatsApp would make money by - charging for certain types of messages sent via the API (already doing it) - from ads on the WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram Platform that clic…

Those are some big words but.... the chat market is flooded. I barely use Whats App as well as most people I know so they are far from ubiquitous. Why then? Why not any other chat app, or even messenger with far greater reach and just as many resources?

That might be the case in your country... but in Latin America, for example, WhatsApp is HUGE. People don't text each other, they use WhatsApp. Mobile carriers provide plans with discounted traffic for WhatsApp, or sometimes even free. Entire family and friend groups constantly keep in touch using WhatsApp.

In fact, Bolsonaro used WhatsApp spam as part of his election campaign strategy[1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/30/whatsapp-fake-...

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