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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

#311

Post by kelnos »

redditmigrant wrote: post #153
neogodless wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because someone is convinced to part with their money does not mean they meaningfully added value to their life. Certainly generates value for Facebook and retail, though.

If they themselves say they discovered a product that they were interested in, how is that not value addition? Value isnt defined in your advertising free ivory tower.

It isn't defined in your ad-filled cesspool, either. I don't see convincing someone to buy something as an absolute positive value. There's nuance. Making someone aware of a product that will genuinely improve their life is great, but most ads in my experience are more like drug pushers.

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

#312

Post by kelnos »

cm2012 wrote: post #284
mr_toad wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that 78% of Facebook subscribers had money just burning a hole in their pocket. Advertising is just borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.

How do you think capitalism works?

Toxic consumerism is not a required (or even desirable) requirement for capitalism.

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

#313

Post by hactually »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #232
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…

Except to show that notification on your phone, Facebook needs to give a 3rd party (Phone Manufacturer) access not only to your data, but data about your friends. This is something people are currently very upset with them for doing. So they can make things convenient, or keep your data safe, but its hard to do both.

That's simply not true.

It's an API to publish a notification - a similar API to that used to build the core app. There's no additional sharing of data than what's already happening running the app.

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

#315

Post by soziawa »

1024core wrote: post #309
alagappanr wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would agree with your sentiment, but Whatsapp itself is an example of a messaging service that relied on their 1$/year model and had around 200 million active users before it went free.

They started charging after they had achieved scale.

No, it cost 1$ from the very beginning on iOS.

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

#316

Post by cm2012 »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #295
cm2012 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can test this yourself easily on facebook. Just target a blank audience of all users vs a lookalike audience FB builds for you algorithmically. The latter works much, much better at generating sales for almost everyone.

> "The latter works much, much better at generating sales for almost everyone." This seems like an extraordinary claim that would require extraordinary statistical evidence to believe it. Both evidence to ensure the methodology of comparing whatever Facebook does with blank audience ad serving to whatever is done with lookalike audiences, as well as the "much, much better" part and the "almost everyone" part. For exa…

Alternatively, you could serve ads on Yahoo, or Reddit, or the whole Google Display Network, etc., and see how much vastly worse those clicks convert for you.

This isn't rocket science. I've managed millions of dollars of ad spend across a dozen companies. I know lots of other people who manage ad spend. The only other digital channel that's anywhere near as targeted and scalable as Facebook is Google search, which is why the two combined make up 90% of new online ad spend (according to data).

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

#317

Post by intended »

diogenescynic wrote: post #262
chinhodado wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most frustrating change for me was FB (or Messenger later) used to send me an email when I received a message, with the message content inside the email. A few years ago they removed the content from the email and forced me to log into FB or Messenger to see the message. It's extremely user hostile.

They won’t even let you view messages on the mobile website either. Instead they restrict that and force you to install the Messenger app. Yelp does the same thing and feels just as scummy of a tactic. Basically both companies try to force you to install an app you don’t actually need so they can mine your contacts and personal data. No thanks to your tricks and traps business model.

This will always be the case as long as advertising is the core business model.

Social media is best suited to that kind of business model - and most people won’t pay for a subscription.

So social media is broke?

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

#318

Post by soziawa »

astrange wrote: post #256
sonnyblarney wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Not sure what Facebook employees don't understand" It's the part where What's App doesn't actually make any money and as a standalone business isn't worth a whole lot. The issue boils down to business model. It's really easy for WhatsApp founders to take the moral high road when he doesn't have to bother with trying to make a dime. The WhatsApp founder is in somewhat of a hypocritical position given that his $17 Bi…

WhatsApp was very profitable and efficiently run when they were acquired. I mean, they only had 35 employees for the world.

They were far from being profitable. They made close to no money, nobody I know was charged more than the initial fee.

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

#319

Post by Maro »

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 read the article based on your comment, but I disagree overall.

I do agree that it was---in retrospect---unfortunate and optimistic of MZ to promise too much freedom and independence from FB. But it seems FB _did_ give WhatsApp a long runway, it's been 3-4 years since the acquisition. If their ideas don't work (wrt bringing in revenue in line with the acq. price), at some point you have to go back to square one and do the thing that works (also for IG), and do the FB-style ads/monetization.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for the WhatsApp founders. They took the money (they're worth almost $10B now), they did have 3-4 years to find their (and their team's) way within FB. It's cool that they don't like ads and moral standards or whatever, but come on, you have to be more rational when you're playing in the $10B league.

Disclaimer: I worked at FB previously for a short time.

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

#320

Post by inthaiguy »

moedersmooiste wrote: post #43
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 installed Signal a while back and tried to convince as many people as possible to switch. But only 7 people in my contact list have Signal installed. Even when communicating with those 7 people i tend to use WhatsApp because i tend to process all my messages at once without switching apps.

Telegram is the natural replacement for WhatsApp - very similar, but so much nicer.

I also use Signal ( and about 10 other messaging apps ) and while good, it’s a little rough around the edges and needs improvement.

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