Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users • Hacker News Board

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#231

Post by aianus » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 11:02 PM UTC

sheepmullet wrote: post #230

aianus wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I resent them because Whatsapp is terrible, terrible software compared to Facebook Messenger yet somehow made $19B. 1. No web interface, I'm forced to use a tiny mobile keyboard 2. Identity tied to my phone number which changes every month 3. Ugly (subjective) 4. My friends are already on Facebook, why have another service that does the same thing but worse. 5. No chat bubbles. 6. No meme search I could go on and on.…

> 1. No web interface, I'm forced to use a tiny mobile keyboard Not a problem for most people. On the other hand it works well on pretty much every phone out there. In comparison Facebook messenger runs terribly on my iPhone 4. I'd hate to try and use it on a lower end android phone. > 2. Identity tied to my phone number which changes every month I've had the same phone number for over 10 years. Everybody understands…

> For most people Facebook messenger was late to the party and doesn't have any real draw.

Facebook Messenger has been around since the launch of Facebook. I've personally been using it over 7 years in various forms. WhatsApp is the one that was late to the party.

> On the other hand it works well on pretty much every phone out there.

Of course it does, because it has no features. You can't send money with it, you can't send stickers or GIFs, you have to physically open the app to send a message, it doesn't have link previews, and so on and so forth.

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#232

Post by dodecaphonic » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 11:26 PM UTC

riffraff wrote: post #203

chetanahuja wrote: post #202

Basically they're a silicon valley company who've done everything that's exactly the opposite of standard silicon valley advise -- bootstrapped for first few years, complete apathy or even aversion to silicon valley marketing (if you live in the valley and have no foreign connection, you probably didn't even know what whatsapp was before 2012 or so), built for all client platforms simultaneously (including blackberry…

> bootstrapped for first few years I recall whatsapp being free before it was for pay, how was it bootstrapped?

I recall paying for it in iOS, and getting a "it's free for a year" message on Android before the Facebook transaction.

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#233

Post by flgb » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 12:00 AM UTC

ryanburk wrote: post #206

riffraff wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bootstrapped for first few years I recall whatsapp being free before it was for pay, how was it bootstrapped?

they didn't take venture capital and instead self funded. even if you aren't generating revenue, you can bootstrap

And how did they pay expenses if they had no capital and no revenue?

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#234

Post by sheepmullet » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 12:11 AM UTC

aianus wrote: post #231

sheepmullet wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. No web interface, I'm forced to use a tiny mobile keyboard Not a problem for most people. On the other hand it works well on pretty much every phone out there. In comparison Facebook messenger runs terribly on my iPhone 4. I'd hate to try and use it on a lower end android phone. > 2. Identity tied to my phone number which changes every month I've had the same phone number for over 10 years. Everybody understands…

> For most people Facebook messenger was late to the party and doesn't have any real draw. Facebook Messenger has been around since the launch of Facebook. I've personally been using it over 7 years in various forms. WhatsApp is the one that was late to the party. > On the other hand it works well on pretty much every phone out there. Of course it does, because it has no features. You can't send money with it, you ca…

> Facebook Messenger has been around since the launch of Facebook. I've personally been using it over 7 years in various forms.

And it was a crap experience on mobile until it was pulled out of Facebook into its own app.

> Of course it does, because it has no features.

It has the most important features for good individual and group chat.

> you can't send stickers or GIFs

That's a feature.

> you have to physically open the app to send a message

I'm not sure what that means. I have to open the FB Messenger app too? Maybe it's different on android.

> it doesn't have link previews

Again another point in whatsapps favor. I hate link previews in FB Messenger.

> You can't send money with it

Not really much of a feature because of all the setup involved. It's got potential and if it could tie in with the host operating system or payment providers etc on mobile it could be really great.

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#235

Post by nols » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 2:26 AM UTC

flgb wrote: post #233

ryanburk wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they didn't take venture capital and instead self funded. even if you aren't generating revenue, you can bootstrap

And how did they pay expenses if they had no capital and no revenue?

Bootstrapping isn't no capital, it's no outside investment. The two founders had worked for Yahoo for years before quitting, they used their savings and kept expenses low.

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#236

Post by spyder » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:44 AM UTC

lotso wrote: post #160

smcl wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone commenting along these lines on HN is that ignorant. Everyone on here understands that anything executed at the WhatsApp/FB/Instagram sort of scale is going to present all sorts of tough problems and require software engineering know-how in spades. However of all the various applications you could conceivably scale to hundreds of millions of users this is one of the simplest. I do not think ackno…

>However of all the various applications you could conceivably scale to hundreds of millions of users this is one of the simplest. I do not think acknowledging that is cringeworthy at all. What other apps besides social networking and communication apps even get to hundreds of millions of user?

Photo and video sharing/storage apps with the problem of storing huge amounts of data + most of them includes the communication part too (comments). If I remember correctly WhatsApp doesn't even stores the text messages.

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#237

Post by spyder » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:57 AM UTC

chetanahuja wrote: post #202

Basically they're a silicon valley company who've done everything that's exactly the opposite of standard silicon valley advise -- bootstrapped for first few years, complete apathy or even aversion to silicon valley marketing (if you live in the valley and have no foreign connection, you probably didn't even know what whatsapp was before 2012 or so), built for all client platforms simultaneously (including blackberry…

"built for all client platforms simultaneously"

And that's why it's strange that the article focuses on Erlang: Are all of the client apps written in Erlang?

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#238

Post by rootlocus » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 5:51 AM UTC

spyder wrote: post #237

chetanahuja wrote: post #202

Basically they're a silicon valley company who've done everything that's exactly the opposite of standard silicon valley advise -- bootstrapped for first few years, complete apathy or even aversion to silicon valley marketing (if you live in the valley and have no foreign connection, you probably didn't even know what whatsapp was before 2012 or so), built for all client platforms simultaneously (including blackberry…

"built for all client platforms simultaneously" And that's why it's strange that the article focuses on Erlang: Are all of the client apps written in Erlang?

I believe that would be impossible. Also, the client isn't required to do a lot of parallel work, it's just an end point for the two way communication with the server.

The servers, on the other hand, have to serve all the million users connected at any single moment. That requires a lot of parallelism, and that's the most likely place where Erlang was successful.

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#239

Post by jzzskijj » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 6:13 AM UTC

aianus wrote: post #209

tome wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Err, WhatsApp?

Thanks, I feel dumb. Although that makes his argument "WhatsApp is good because you can use it to keep in touch with friends and family" which is meaningless.

How do you mean meaningless? What do you do with a "good" IM app, if your loved ones aren't using it? The most of the relatives and friends already have WhatsApp installed and are using it. Can't contact them with Telegram, IRC, HipChat, Viber, Skype, etc.

Re: Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users

#240

Post by chetanahuja » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 6:46 AM UTC

spyder wrote: post #237

chetanahuja wrote: post #202

Basically they're a silicon valley company who've done everything that's exactly the opposite of standard silicon valley advise -- bootstrapped for first few years, complete apathy or even aversion to silicon valley marketing (if you live in the valley and have no foreign connection, you probably didn't even know what whatsapp was before 2012 or so), built for all client platforms simultaneously (including blackberry…

"built for all client platforms simultaneously" And that's why it's strange that the article focuses on Erlang: Are all of the client apps written in Erlang?

Not at all. The client apps were written in their respective framework/languages.

Yes yes, I do believe there's some boosterism going on when their success is entirely attributed to Erlang/FreeBSD alone. Sure the stability and scalability of the backend may have been helped by using Erlang but the fact that they got to scale at all has to do with all these other business/cultural/timing/design factors that I mentioned above.

Btw, the one factor I forgot to mention above was the call to use phone numbers as the namespace for user identity. I believe they were one of the early ones, if not the first ones, who eschewed email and/or social login and went straight to phone number. That made them a direct replacement for SMS in large parts of the world where SMS costs were meaningfully expensive to the population. One more example of focusing outside the US market in general and outside of Valley bubble in particular.