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Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

wsj.com

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Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#281

Post by kamaal »

owaislone wrote: post #146
anuragbiyani wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are completely mistaken if you think adding a subscription-only would not reduce usage of WhatsApp by 10x at least. I am an Indian (WhatsApp's biggest market by far), and know for a fact that hardly 1% of people using it right now in India would be able/willing to set up a payment system AND willing to pay $1 for it (which is not as inexpensive as you think) when there are so many free alternatives. And then it i…

Probably not representative but in my circle, 90% people did pay for whatsapp before FB bought it out. The rest either had lifetime subscription through iOS AppStore or changed their phone numbers every year just to use whatsapp. Whatsapp is the only software I've seen Indians pay for without thinking twice. 60 rupees per year is very easy to shell out especially when it replaces SMS which would cost you many times m…

Nothing can compete with 0 rupees.

Also unlimited SMS are free these days.

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#282

Post by axaxs »

reitanqild wrote: post #271
axaxs wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I compared them all at one time. Encrypted by default was a must, the rest were excluded. Signal - Featureless Telegram - Not encrypted by default, and controversial encryption Wire - Really liked Wire, but it had a bug of not doing push notifications correctly. Many missed messages until opening the app manually and seeing them. Viber - No real complaint with Viber I guess, I don't quite remember why I didn't like i…

> Telegram - Not encrypted by default, and controversial encryption While Telegram annoy me more and more by some of their crypto moves this just isn't true and we should stop spreading this lie. Please help me stop this idea that only E2E is crypto. For examples of not encrypted data, look at telnet and plain http, they are unencrypted protocols and anyone can read the content as it passes over their network.

sorry, i didn't understand your point. Which part are you saying isn't true? If it's about 'encrypted' vs 'e2e encrypted' I apologize as I was vague, but did preface it with the fact only e2e would be considered.

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#283

Post by kamaal »

pnloyd wrote: post #274
anuragbiyani wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk about living in a bubble. +everything drdaeman@ said above. There are more people using WhatsApp in India (thanks to popularity of image/video/voice-messages) than who can actually read or have usable Bank accounts. If you think they can pay "$1" for something they can get for free (and have been using for free in past), then you are completely out of touch of reality. Apart from the amount (which is not trivial…

So what's a dollar to an average Indian whatsapp user. An hour's wage, a day, week?

Nothing. For poor it might make them think for a few seconds, but its still nothing.

The real issue is they can't compete with $0.

Also best way WhatsApp can work around this is to just ship their app with the phone, and bill the phone $1 * avg life of the phone.

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#284

Post by axaxs »

24gttghh wrote: post #82
axaxs wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I compared them all at one time. Encrypted by default was a must, the rest were excluded. Signal - Featureless Telegram - Not encrypted by default, and controversial encryption Wire - Really liked Wire, but it had a bug of not doing push notifications correctly. Many missed messages until opening the app manually and seeing them. Viber - No real complaint with Viber I guess, I don't quite remember why I didn't like i…

>Signal - Featureless Come now. Signal has group chats, document sharing, built-in GIF searching (GIPHY), disappearing messages, encrypted calling (video and/or voice), oh and the most important feature: text messaging.

Keep in mind I tested these at the same time. TBH I don't remember when, probably in late 2016/early 2017. I distinctly remember Signal's video chat wasn't good, and you couldn't reposition it on the screen. Lack of stickers, a doodle pad, etc. Featureless was a harsh word, but compared to it's competitors, it's not a reach.

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#285

Post by gonvaled »

I would pay for some extra features. From the top of my head:

- several accounts (phone numbers) managed in a single WhatsApp installation

- auto-forward messages from one number to another

- integration with other services (gmail, gdrive, ...)

- api, to scratch my itches

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#286

Post by pmontra »

russellbeattie wrote: post #78

Whatsapp had a great business model: $1 a year. With their current 1.5 billion users, that's nothing to sneeze at. It doesn't cost them $100M a month to provide the service. I wish more companies were like Craigslist - happy to make an great profit and a lasting business by providing basic information services for a reasonable price. Instead, a bunch of MBAs want to rule the world by focusing on growth at all costs,…

They didn't enforce payments. I remember they asked me money but the app still worked when I didn't pay. I was surprised, so when they asked me money again many months later I didn't pay again to see what happened. The app kept working. Months later they asked me money again and this time the app stopped working. But back then whatsapp was not as popular as it is now. I was still using SMSes with most of my contacts (my plan had more free SMSes than I needed) and Viber was at least as popular as Whatsapp and I remember that I was using at least another two or three instant messengers with different people. So I didn't pay and I waited to see what happened. The other messengers where free. After a couple of days whatsapp started to work again. So it was official, they bluffed about payment and I knew that I could ignore their future requests. They cared about growing and not about being profitable. The $1 per year business model wasn't for real.

My guess is that if they enforced payments there wouldn't be any whatsapp now. We would be writing about one of their free competitors from that time now.

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#287

Post by blub »

wolco wrote: post #162
blub wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone can't afford to pay $1 per year for something that allows them to communicate faster and cheaper then they are so fucked it's not even funny. We're talking mind-boggling levels of poverty. How are they able to even pay for a phone and mobile subscription? Where do they live? How do they eat? It sounds to me like a made-up sad story used as an excuse for rich corporations. If there are people that poor out…

Not sure where in the world you live but if the medium income for Malawi is $250 dollars and the medium income where you live is $25,000 convert 1 dollar to $100. Would you pay $100 dollars a year for whatsapp? I wouldn't. For those living in the valley making 250,000 a year that translates to $1,000 dollars. To me that sounds like flushing your money away. The best phones are under 1,000.

Why are countries where people can't pay $1 per year at all relevant to a discussion on software products?

If India and Malawi and whatever other country can't pay for WhatsApp, they don't get it or Facebook makes it free just for them. Or they find a way to make the ones that can pay do so.

What's the big deal?

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#288

Post by pmontra »

pmlnr wrote: post #104
wlesieutre wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glossing over the fact that they probably wouldn't have all of those 1.5 billion users if it had stayed a paid service. Even at $1, having to pay money pushes people off to other free platforms.

So? It would still be profitable. Not everyone has to use the same thing.

One of their free competitors would have grown to 1.5 billion users and whatsapp wouldn't be able to charge money for the same product. They would have had to pivot to something people would pay for or close or sell for a much smaller amount.

They could try charging $1 per year now and see what happens. Probably a flood mainly to Facebook Messenger and in part to other apps.

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#290

Post by yayana »

bodas wrote: post #174
yayana wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly speaking, I actually tried to ditch whatsapp but failed. I found it hard to get people to switch to signal because there are no user visible benefits and it's a little less polished. But the first day Whatsapp puts in ads..

I doubt it, Signal is terrible. Extremely sterile user experience, almost the complete opposite of something like LINE. They need to make it more fun.

Yuck. Video calling and looking like the built-in apps is all that is wanted.
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