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Kik, once valued at $1B, is to be closed

forbes.com

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Re: Kik, once valued at $1B, is to be closed

#61

Post by jessaustin »

bradhe wrote: post #26

If anyone reading this works on Forbes’ web team: Your page hijacking ads and modals begging me to “sign up” are just destroying the reading experience. Please, fix your shit before you ask people for money!

Are you really browsing without uBlock Origin? Yikes.

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock

Re: Kik, once valued at $1B, is to be closed

#62

Post by jessaustin »

jachee wrote: post #43
mattigames wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything old is new again, the crack epidemic was fueled by the CIA[0] and they killed one of the whisteblowers (Gary Webb) and the FBI has recently been involved with the Jeffrey Epstein cover up[1]. Those institutions have little to none accountability which makes them extremely attractive to the wealthy to put them in their pockets; and even when those institutions have the best intentions such lack of checks an…

Lawful Evil, so to speak.

That alignment is over-represented in the federal government.

Re: Kik, once valued at $1B, is to be closed

#63

Post by nikolay »

Kik, Telegram, and Skype has a spam issue. Until they solve it, they are doomed. I have "nikolay" on Telegram and get tends of messages from scammers daily. Same with Skype, and Kik. I don't get spam on Viber and Messenger and that's why I use those. All the rest are not worth my time although I love both Telegram and Skype more than the rest, but don't have the nerves to deal with their basic design issues.

Re: Kik, once valued at $1B, is to be closed

#64

Post by lallysingh »

colechristensen wrote: post #42

Wow. People are ridiculous about cryptocurrencies and the SEC's authority to regulate securities (and decide what a security is). To have an enormously engaged platform with a moderation problem and a cryptocurrency with an SEC problem and to pick the SEC problem is ... I'm sorry for the workers, their families, and their investors that they're losing their jobs and the work they put into the platform will just be go…

It's text chat. They're sending strings between web browsers with a server in the middle. Google releases 5-10 new chat services a year. They don't have much to keep them afloat outside of moatless-popularity. Their position was always incredibly fragile.

A few small bumps is all that's needed by to take them out. They didn't recognize that and fell over.

Re: Kik, once valued at $1B, is to be closed

#65

Post by thesausageking »

criddell wrote: post #10

What was the $1B valuation based on? It seems absurd.

The $1B valuation was for their last round which was a $50m investment by Tencent, the company behind WeChat. The investment was more about a partnership between the companies than the economics. At the time, Kik's CEO said: "Today, there are only five other companies in the world that see the future like we do: Tencent, Line, Facebook, Snapchat, and Telegram. One of them owns the largest internet market in the world. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with them as we run this race."

Re: Kik, once valued at $1B, is to be closed

#66

Post by kizer »

Too many people sharing nudes (their own and not their own) and other pornography; for those normal people who stay 50+ miles away from the "chans".

Also, I agree with other that spam is cancerous in these messaging apps. Think about how much spam your email client filters; "publicly addressable" apps need the same logic.

Re: Kik, once valued at $1B, is to be closed

#67

Post by lytedev »

injaki wrote: post #54
scoot wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. Not a Kik user, but how are public groups a unique feature (compared to say Subreddits)?

OP meant searchable public group. In discord you need an invite link, and there's no way to search by its name.

But I believe you can search for subreddits as well? The same is true on BAND with searchable, public, joinable communities.

Re: Kik, once valued at $1B, is to be closed

#68

Post by reilly3000 »

nikolay wrote: post #63

Kik, Telegram, and Skype has a spam issue. Until they solve it, they are doomed. I have "nikolay" on Telegram and get tends of messages from scammers daily. Same with Skype, and Kik. I don't get spam on Viber and Messenger and that's why I use those. All the rest are not worth my time although I love both Telegram and Skype more than the rest, but don't have the nerves to deal with their basic design issues.

It seems more appropriate to me to start punishing spammers rather than holding platforms accountable for their customer’s behavior.

Re: Kik, once valued at $1B, is to be closed

#69

Post by ladberg »

lytedev wrote: post #67
injaki wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP meant searchable public group. In discord you need an invite link, and there's no way to search by its name.

But I believe you can search for subreddits as well? The same is true on BAND with searchable, public, joinable communities.

Instant messaging (Kik, Discord, Slack) has totally different uses cases than Reddit, which is more like a forum.
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