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Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and WhatsApp’s Founders

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Re: Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and WhatsApp’s Founders

#241

Post by drb91 »

bald wrote: post #102
ythn wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the definition of "low income"? It would vary wildly from country to country.

Not saying I support the original idea, but there's objective, widely agreed-upon definitions for poverty, so it should be possible to transfer these to define low income.

> objective, widely agreed-upon definitions for poverty

No, there aren’t; this is a political line that doesn’t make any sense at all. This is why “livable wage” is a phrase: just getting above the poverty line does not imply you can live on your income. The poverty line is pegged too low to be meaningful, at least here in US.

Re: Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and WhatsApp’s Founders

#242

Post by kbenson »

genofon wrote: post #212
oregontechninja wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might also be a feature of your browser. Firefox and chrome both implemented this a little while ago. If you pin the tab, it shouldn't stop playing video when you switch away. I forget which of the browsers, but it really helps people on bad laptops and what not.

but it doesn't append with youtube for example

Well, a lot of people use Youtube as a music service, so that makes sense. I think there may be a domain whitelist for non-active page video in chrome, which was brought up and discusses here a while back, but I can't recall. Or maybe it was auto-play? Maybe they share a whitelist though.

Re: Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and WhatsApp’s Founders

#243

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

doctorsher wrote: post #77
Djvacto wrote: post #9

So, I use WhatsApp as my primary source of communication. Knowing facebook owned it always made me a little nervous, but given that it was end-to-end encrypted, I figured Facebook wasn't getting any more from me then they would from all my facebook-using-friends who would send me SMS's before. But I'm worried about how long I can continue to use the service moving forward, which is sad as this is my main way to commu…

I totally understand. You are facing the classic dilemma of privacy vs convenience. Personally, I distrusted facebook so much that I have avoided any of their products since 2013. Obviously a major win for my privacy, but it sacrificed some convenience -- then I had no real-time way to communicate with my relative in India. In the end, you'll have to do some introspection to see if the convenience gained is worth the…

At this point, it isn't about privacy vs. convenience, it's about privacy vs. being able to have a social life. People aren't going to install a more privacy-supportive messenger just for you, they'll gradually let you drop out of their lives just like you would with a friend that you can only reach by driving to their farm 6 hours away.

Re: Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and WhatsApp’s Founders

#244

Post by recharged93 »

rm999 wrote: post #57

I've had a tremendous amount of respect for Mark Zuckerberg as a leader, and have gone out of my way to defend him in the past ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17128369 ). I always envisioned whatsapp as a defensive purchase that would stay true to its initial vision (perhaps being used to prop up their other products in an unintrusive manner). But this article makes me realize Mark is s a one-trick advertising…

Bingo.

The only mass market "free, but pay at some point" model is ads. Nothing else. That is the last 10yrs of Silicon Valley and pretty much every startup today. Cause if you have a great idea and decent execution, FANG companies have so much power to enter the market and crush you, 1st mover advantage is the exception nowadays. Or at least buy you out, github is a perfect example.

Re: Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and WhatsApp’s Founders

#245

Post by ChuckMcM »

jshen wrote: post #191
ChuckMcM wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect this depends a lot on where you were living in the decades before 2000 and what you mean by "phone calls". In much of the US, in the 70's, 80's, and 90's a telephone had a fixed monthly fee and 'free' calling to any other phone in the local area. Phone penetration was over 90%[1] in 1970 and rose to over 95% by 1980 suggesting that even those at 50% below the poverty line in 1980 (roughly 6% of the US popula…

Most of us had family outside of our area code which meant large bills if we wanted to talk to them on a regular basis.

I understand, although we can argue about 'Most of us' versus 'Some of us'. My experience was that my need for out of area calls went up only after I moved from where I went to high school to where I went to college. And many of my friends stayed local. There was a great piece in the NY Times about 3 years ago that talked about how the typical American lives within 18 miles of their family.(found it https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-f...)

Something that came with the Internet, and didn't exist for me prior to its existence, was a large body of friends who were not local to me. Today, if I had to go back to metered long distance rather than what we have today it would absolutely be cost prohibitive! And clearly some people move around more than others and for them they might have a lot of friends and family outside of their local calling region back then as well.

The bottom line is that I can see the point you were making but I think we disagree on the magnitude of its impact on the general population that was living with phones at that time.

Re: Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and WhatsApp’s Founders

#246

Post by ameister14 »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #236
ameister14 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you've worked in the mobile app business you might get that this could mean almost 0 in revenues. It could, but it didn't. It meant revenues in the tens of millions.

Yes, that's about right. Not much of a company, relative to the $17B he raked in because of their ad-value to FB.

Depends on how you define a company, I suppose. If it is profitable and has hundreds of millions of customers, that's a pretty significant company to me. As an alternative example, broadcast.com was sold for 5.7 billion.

I'd take continued success, hundreds of millions of happy users and a good purpose over broadcast.com.

Re: Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and WhatsApp’s Founders

#247

Post by htaunay »

danpalmer wrote: post #208
cma wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine how useful it would be if when there is a notification about a friend on Facebook, you could peek it by swiping on the notification in the android drawer like you can with texts, without entering the Facebook app. Nope. Engineers are dedicated there to increasing other things than the utility of the app. Interests aren't aligned with the users. Same with removing chronological feeds. Turn things more and more…

We just started trialling Facebook Workplace. Unfortunately the same is true of that. It’s all about getting you back into Workplace, rather than actually doing your job.

This. Why on earth would an organization invest resources in a productivity tool which is by design optimized to make you procrastinate?

Re: Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and WhatsApp’s Founders

#248

Post by rapind »

rm999 wrote: post #57

I've had a tremendous amount of respect for Mark Zuckerberg as a leader, and have gone out of my way to defend him in the past ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17128369 ). I always envisioned whatsapp as a defensive purchase that would stay true to its initial vision (perhaps being used to prop up their other products in an unintrusive manner). But this article makes me realize Mark is s a one-trick advertising…

I can't imagine he cares about the money anymore, so it must be another motivator. Maybe he believes in what he's doing, for better or worse.

Re: Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and WhatsApp’s Founders

#249

Post by webkike »

rapind wrote: post #248
rm999 wrote: post #57

I've had a tremendous amount of respect for Mark Zuckerberg as a leader, and have gone out of my way to defend him in the past ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17128369 ). I always envisioned whatsapp as a defensive purchase that would stay true to its initial vision (perhaps being used to prop up their other products in an unintrusive manner). But this article makes me realize Mark is s a one-trick advertising…

I can't imagine he cares about the money anymore, so it must be another motivator. Maybe he believes in what he's doing, for better or worse.

He probably cares about the well being of facebook employees and his children.

Re: Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and WhatsApp’s Founders

#250

Post by pmlnr »

danpalmer wrote: post #208
cma wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine how useful it would be if when there is a notification about a friend on Facebook, you could peek it by swiping on the notification in the android drawer like you can with texts, without entering the Facebook app. Nope. Engineers are dedicated there to increasing other things than the utility of the app. Interests aren't aligned with the users. Same with removing chronological feeds. Turn things more and more…

We just started trialling Facebook Workplace. Unfortunately the same is true of that. It’s all about getting you back into Workplace, rather than actually doing your job.

My employer has been using Workplace for over a year. It took over a year to finally hear it from other colleagues that they don't see some posts, which I started telling from the very first day.

And the reasoning to use it? "People are familiar with it from home". Well.. how about using something else and spend 30 mins on educating people? Oh, that might mean no new yacht for shareholders this year.

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