Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's literally the endgame of capitalism. Capitalism is, and always has been, about reaching a state where supply exceeds demand. One could argue that once a business reaches that stage, they can put up a Mission Accomplished banner and fire most of their workforce. But because of how wealth is distributed, workers always need to be working so they're incentivized to extend the work and market as long as possible.…
Agreed! A good reason not to like capitalism.
Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money
371–380 of 392 posts
Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd agree that some of the colonies would have improved had the colonisation not happened, but not everywhere: in some case it happened because the colonised powers did it. And most of them didn't have systems of education before the colonisation.
> but not everywhere: in some case it happened because the colonised powers did it. Could you please describe me such a scenario/situation where it would’ve or has had happened? The point of my argument hinges on the natives unability to improve due to the oppressors malevolence. > And most of them didn't have systems of education before the colonisation. Sure, most if not all of them didn’t have a Europian styled sy…
We can still go a long way!
Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed! A good reason not to like capitalism.
Or implementing limits to it so that we get mostly the good of it.
Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're an outlier by not being greedy.
Craigslist is a benevolent dictator, but it is no saint. Craigslist is greedy in a strange way. Craigslist is greedy over their the simplicity of their product and desire to hold on to their turf. The company makes more than enough money to offer all kinds of improvements that need not markedly change how the marketplace behaves. These features would not exploit the user or the user's experience. (In the spirit of th…
That's literally their entire business model.
They could make so much money with all that data but stay true to their original goals of providing a classifieds service.
Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money
#375Shit, I just convinced my parents to use WhatsApp instead of SMS. Time to start looking for an alternative. What's Telegram's business model? (yes, a good UI is a requirement and no, Signal isn't there yet).
Telegram just raising $1.7B in a crypto sale, which means it is the largest chat app not owned by a major corp or government. Plus familiar interface to Whatsapp, they won't even know you switched them.
Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can report from the trenches of a major software consulting firm: putting a sharp engineer who's even reasonably good at communicating in front of the C-suite is 5-20x more effective than using someone with an MBA.
But is it the best use for the engineer's time? Does the engineer want to talk to a bunch of strangers every ..say.. week?
Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
But is it the best use for the engineer's time? Does the engineer want to talk to a bunch of strangers every ..say.. week?
The best use of an engineer’s time is whatever makes the company the most money. If talking to customers C-level people is a weekly requirement for that, then that is what the engineer needs to do.
Very often, the engineer would get frustrated with this and look for work which is more interesting. That way, the company will be, increasingly, left with engineers who are there because they have no alternative.
Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd agree that some of the colonies would have improved had the colonisation not happened, but not everywhere: in some case it happened because the colonised powers did it. And most of them didn't have systems of education before the colonisation.
> but not everywhere: in some case it happened because the colonised powers did it. Could you please describe me such a scenario/situation where it would’ve or has had happened? The point of my argument hinges on the natives unability to improve due to the oppressors malevolence. > And most of them didn't have systems of education before the colonisation. Sure, most if not all of them didn’t have a Europian styled sy…
Yes the empire was a dictatorship that conquered them and in the early era, bought slaves from the local rulers. In the late eras the empire built infrastructure, education systems, brought modern medicine, tried to teach civilised values like not beheading your political opponents and having votes instead, and in some cases as the empire faded, left the countries in a vastly better state than they were found.
Colonialism is easily one of the most complex and ethically grey areas I've found when studying history. There is no evidence or reason to believe those societies would have ever advanced were they not conquered.
Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because it's hard, and the people running them are sharp and smart, doesn't make it any more righteous or normal. Back in the Colonial times, sharp smart lads went to prestigious military schools and learned the complexities of how to subjugate conquered people. How to efficiently run a slave camp. How to squeeze every unit of labor off the peasants, etc. People went to these schools were probably very cultured,…
I believe the parent’s point was that running a business that is self-sustaining is actually a difficult endeavour, and doing what looks like ‘squeezing customers’ from the outside is actually what the business needs to do to survive. I think this is a reasonable point, considering that no matter what price point many services are offered at, customers will still complain that it’s too high. Leading me to my question…
Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money
#380Whatsapp 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,…
Ok, I agree that some MBAs can be full of it but can we already stop this MBA hate on HN? I feel like lots of people here think that if you build something then customers will surely come. I've got a huge surprise for you. You will have to sell your product and some of the MBA's are really great at that. In B2B a single sale can make or break your company when you're low on cash. You do your job and let them do their…