Earlier quoted context omitted.
Signal would be the obvious choice.
An app people actually use would be a more obvious choice.
I know I'm a sample size of one, but I know a lot of people who use Signal (and no, they're not all in tech).
WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
251–260 of 413 posts
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think demonizing the guys behind WhatsApp is entirely warranted. They built up a large userbase around promises of privacy and encryption, and then promptly sold those users to fucking Facebook. Whether they were just gullible and didn't do their due diligence, or if they were malignant, doesn't really make a big difference.
It's not like they secretly sold it Facebook. People knew what Facebook was about by the time of the acquisition and either didn't care, did a wait-and-see or switched to an alternative. Perfectly reasonable behavior by everyone involved. Your standard for "demon" is rather low ! :-)
I guess they "trusted" WhatsApp. "Dumb f##ks", right?
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think demonizing the guys behind WhatsApp is entirely warranted. They built up a large userbase around promises of privacy and encryption, and then promptly sold those users to fucking Facebook. Whether they were just gullible and didn't do their due diligence, or if they were malignant, doesn't really make a big difference.
How many Whatsapp users care about privacy and encryption? How many chose Whatsapp because of that? I believe most users simply use it because it is the most used messaging app in their country
And how many paid a single cent for it?
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#254So... Basically he cashed out billions. That is ridiculous amount of money. Now he said "no" to $850 millions for moral reasons, and the moral action here is mostly that he won't work for facebook any more. For me this sounds quite ridiculous. He already cashed out as they sold the unprofitable service for ridiculous amount of money. Facebook has to generate profit for shareholders so they have to monetize it somehow…
> “At the end of the day, I sold my company,” Acton says. “I sold my users’ privacy to a larger benefit. I made a choice and a compromise. And I live with that every day.”
Seems like he's aware but Forbes is desperately trying to spin it differently.
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#255This article seems a little unfair to the WhatsApp founders when it suggests they should have known that any assurances Facebook made to them as part of the acquisition were obviously lies. Sure in 2018 it might be obvious to most of us that nothing Facebook says or promises can be trusted but I don't think that was necessarily as obvious when the acquisition happened and they can be forgiven for thinking they weren'…
are you serious? these guys aren’t dummies. there was an anti-monetization clause in the contract. you don’t put that there out of an over abundance of caution. they knew exactly FB’s intentions. they maybe didn’t expect it to come home to roost so quickly, but they should have. again, these are smart guys. they just couldn’t get past the billions, plain and simple.
I think at some point you could honestly make the decision that you can do a lot more good with $3B than guarding the privacy of the relatively well off from Facebook's ad machine.
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
Philadelphia Stock Exchange was founded in 1790, NYSE in 1792. If something changed in the 1980s, it wasn’t the stock market.
The doctrine of what the purpose of business is changed in the 1980s. During the post-WW2 era the prevailing view was that the purpose of business was to "create a customer", and as a result, corporations existed primarily for consumer benefit. Read Drucker for elaboration on this, and it's also still assumed in many economics textbooks of that period. Starting in 1970, Milton Friedman argued that the sole purpose of…
I don't think anyone "came around" to that sort of thinking. And Milton Freedman was not prescribing a strategy as much as describing a winning strategy. A strategy that has slowly taken over and beat out those organizations that either don't espouse it or have failed to adopt it.
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think demonizing the guys behind WhatsApp is entirely warranted. They built up a large userbase around promises of privacy and encryption, and then promptly sold those users to fucking Facebook. Whether they were just gullible and didn't do their due diligence, or if they were malignant, doesn't really make a big difference.
How many Whatsapp users care about privacy and encryption? How many chose Whatsapp because of that? I believe most users simply use it because it is the most used messaging app in their country
They didn't chose it based on privacy. But they have an expectation of privacy. The post office doesn't read your letters, so why would you expect Facebook to read your messages?
It's difficult to understand for the average person just how much Facebook knows about you and what it can do with that information that isn't in your direct interest. At best they think it's weird how long-lost acquaintances show up as suggested connections, at worst they only notice when Facebook does something directly useful to them.
Sure, you can blame the users, but that's kind of unfair if you consider what kinds of markets WhatsApp already dominated before the acquisition.
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many Whatsapp users care about privacy and encryption? How many chose Whatsapp because of that? I believe most users simply use it because it is the most used messaging app in their country
And how many paid a single cent for it?
Wasn't there a point where WhatsApp cost $1/year or something like that? Or am I thinking of something else? I don't know how long that lasted though.
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#259Why do any of you care about this?
Re: WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Come. On. You don’t get to that kind of valuation with a basically free product without ad targeting. An accelerated vesting clause is not an assurance. If they wanted assurances they could have made it a condition of the deal, ok? They didn’t. Accelerated vesting just means they were telegraphing that they wanted to leave before the shit hit the fan.
Pre-Facebook, WhatsApp's monetization strategy has been to charge users a nominal fee for usage ($1/year). And $1/yr with 1B users doesn't justify the price tag for Facebook. So Facebook wanted to introduce advertising. PS: I'd be happy to pay them $1/month because a significant part of my communication happens over WhatsApp. The challenge is $1/month is probably too pricey for most of their user base.
The challenge is $1/month is probably too pricey for most of their user base.
I was born and raised in a third world country and 99% of my family and friends still live there. Our GDP per capita is around $1,000 (yearly figure). I know people with children who make no more than $150 per month and cannot afford their own apartment. I know people who make even less. I know people who live in villages and probably have a monthly budget of no more than $80-$100.
Yet I have very rarely met people who somehow aren't spending at least $5 per month on their phone bill (buying minutes).
In fact I was very surprised to find that not only nearly everyone has a mobile phone, BUT phone service was more expensive than they are in the US. For example one hour at an internet cafe will set you back 50 cents. Yet everyone has a mobile phone, about half have a smartphone (granted a cheaper version of Android) and people buy internet connection left and right. In America, you walk into any coffee shop, get a free water, a free internet connection and a Thank You.
I say this to say, that WhatsApp could charge $2 per month and most people will happily pay it.