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WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

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Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#41

Post by seniorivn »

jeena wrote: post #39
jsiepkes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But at least I would not constantly call out the people I sold it to, as if my words had any meaning at that point. I can shed some light on this phenomenon. I've been in the situation where we sold half our company to someone who was also active in the same branch as us. When the sale happened we were convinced we were going to do great things together! Take over the world, so to say. As time progressed we (the fo…

Me and a friend we didn't have money but we had a great plan for a company, which already after a year was making a profit. But we needed some investor in the beginning and a friend of my friend just made a lot of money buying and selling a flat in Stockholm and he wanted to invest in us. So he got 51% of the shares and we would get money to start. We two started the company, started making profits after one year and…

Sounds like all the company had is people and your expertise. Why didn't you quit and create a new company with the same people?

Also, knowing what you know now, would it be better to sell the whole company when your investor wanted an exit? Or what you think you should've done?

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#42

Post by banachtarski »

I'm sure the hivemind will downvote this to oblivion but when I see this sort of thing, my gut reaction is that the communication is so dramatic and such an attention grab... As an aside, given the actual events that led up to FB getting the negative limelight, it seems like the ire IMO be directed at the transmission of propaganda/lies via ads, not privacy.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#43

Post by kemyd »

I remember his words from an interview "I sold the privacy of my users for a huge profit. I made a decision that compromised my principles, and I must live with that every day."

This guy should have his own character in the next season of Silicon Valley series.

Give your billions to the poor and move on you poor guy

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#44

Post by dtech »

laurynas-s wrote: post #23

With the proposed 1$/yr/user it is going to take around 19 years to become profitable (with 1bn paid users). Facebook obviously wants a return earlier. The founder did take those billions, so not sure what he was expecting to happen, ads looks like the only business model to turn profit quickly in this sort of business. Besides, there are so many people using WhatsApp in developing countries that wouldn't pay if they…

I never understand why ads and subscription fee needs to be an exclusive or for how the big players monetize.

I'd happily give Google $5/month for Gmail, $10/month for YouTube (I already do), $10/month for google search etc or $40/month for their complete package if they remove ads and respect privacy then. It's less than other "semi-essential" services I have to use like my ISP or car and if they make more than that of me from advertisements the advertising/marketing market must be bonkers.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#45

Post by taneq »

derefr wrote: post #7
cuddlecake wrote: post #3

I just want to say, if I were in his position, I would also trade my company for sweet millions of dollars. But at least I would not constantly call out the people I sold it to, as if my words had any meaning at that point. Also, it's frustrating to me, to see how it's seemingly impossible to care about the users AND have enough users bringing in revenue at the same time so that you are never in a position where big…

I see nothing hypocritical about good people taking payment from evil people. “Payment” means that the resources of the payer go down, and the resources of the payee go up. Now Facebook have less money that they can use to influence the world in stupid/evil ways, and the WhatsApp founders have more money they can use to influence the world in good ways. And, in exchange, since Facebook now owns the service of WhatsAp…

> a service that inherently resists the kind of centralized analytical approaches Facebook uses to make money

Unless they, you know... change it.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#46

Post by throwaway_9168 »

cuddlecake wrote: post #3

I just want to say, if I were in his position, I would also trade my company for sweet millions of dollars. But at least I would not constantly call out the people I sold it to, as if my words had any meaning at that point. Also, it's frustrating to me, to see how it's seemingly impossible to care about the users AND have enough users bringing in revenue at the same time so that you are never in a position where big…

>> The only thing I know is that I'd probably have done the same, as I reckon most would have.

Nothing wrong with that. But then he shouldn't have written blog posts about how WhatsApp cares about privacy, and that there will never be ads on WhatsApp etc.

The real issue is all the lies. And the whiners are correct in whining because they are not (usually) saying they are somehow better people who would have taken a better decision, they are whining that they once supported this company on the basis of the lies it said, and feel like they have been backstabbed.

There is also another problem - Facebook's scummy behavior seems to actually have no end in sight, with employees now hilariously patting themselves in the back and giving themselves good grades with "Remember, what Facebook is doing has never been done before. There are going to be mistakes." [1]. By that measure, should we start throwing the CEO of big tech companies into prison for "massive and systematic privacy invasion". So what if it hasn't been "done before"? Maybe its a mistake to jail them, but that's just a small price for trying new ideas that haven't been "done before".

I think the whiners are not whining loudly enough.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19321420

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#47

Post by Joe-Z »

seniorivn wrote: post #41
jeena wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me and a friend we didn't have money but we had a great plan for a company, which already after a year was making a profit. But we needed some investor in the beginning and a friend of my friend just made a lot of money buying and selling a flat in Stockholm and he wanted to invest in us. So he got 51% of the shares and we would get money to start. We two started the company, started making profits after one year and…

Sounds like all the company had is people and your expertise. Why didn't you quit and create a new company with the same people? Also, knowing what you know now, would it be better to sell the whole company when your investor wanted an exit? Or what you think you should've done?

Not giving a guy who’s bringing nothing to the table but money 51% of your company sounds like a good idea. Not trying to be mean, but as soon as I read that I was like „Oh boy...“

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#49

Post by [deleted] »

andromedavision wrote: post #25
cuddlecake wrote: post #3

I just want to say, if I were in his position, I would also trade my company for sweet millions of dollars. But at least I would not constantly call out the people I sold it to, as if my words had any meaning at that point. Also, it's frustrating to me, to see how it's seemingly impossible to care about the users AND have enough users bringing in revenue at the same time so that you are never in a position where big…

> I had 50 employees, and I had to think about them and the money they would make from this sale. You know if you just scale up the numbers above, Mark could justify what he's doing the same way Acton justifies his actions yet somehow Acton thinks there's a difference. You just have to laugh at that. Sorry, but I think it just sounds unintelligent.

[deleted]

Re: WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue

#50

Post by eitland »

derefr wrote: post #7
cuddlecake wrote: post #3

I just want to say, if I were in his position, I would also trade my company for sweet millions of dollars. But at least I would not constantly call out the people I sold it to, as if my words had any meaning at that point. Also, it's frustrating to me, to see how it's seemingly impossible to care about the users AND have enough users bringing in revenue at the same time so that you are never in a position where big…

I see nothing hypocritical about good people taking payment from evil people. “Payment” means that the resources of the payer go down, and the resources of the payee go up. Now Facebook have less money that they can use to influence the world in stupid/evil ways, and the WhatsApp founders have more money they can use to influence the world in good ways. And, in exchange, since Facebook now owns the service of WhatsAp…

> Now Facebook have less money that they can use to influence the world in stupid/evil ways, and the WhatsApp founders have more money they can use to influence the world in good ways.

Correct.

> since Facebook now owns the service of WhatsApp, they have the adopted duty of popularizing it—a service that inherently resists the kind of centralized analytical approaches Facebook uses to make money

There's nothing inherently decentralized about WhatsApp.

> that nobody would accept if it was turned into not-that, because that’s its whole thing.

Sadly, that's what happened with WhatsApp. It was sold as a privacy-friendly alternative.

After it became part of Facebooks metadata harvesting engine it turned out the majority cared less about privacy and more about the fact that it was a really good messenger (it was/is).

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