111–120 of 372 posts
"WhatsApp also negotiated for nicer bathrooms, with doors that reach the floor." This is not a norm in silicon valley/states?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe I'm just not creative enough, but what is a better alternative? Let's say you have a subscriber model, but than what kind of world will it be where only the wealthy have access to these communication technologies and access to social information. Or you have a hybrid ad model with the ability to opt out by paying some fee. Than what kind of world will that be when privacy is a luxury item limited to how much yo…
Free version for those with verified low income? (I've been toying with models like this for awhile, and not to say its an easy or simple solution to implement, especially when considering bad actors, but it seems the best chance at getting something "fair") Alternatively could steal from games and add "cosmetics". Charge extra for things like themes that personalize but don't necessarily improve the experience. Item…
Top. Kek.
I've had a tremendous amount of respect for Mark Zuckerberg as a leader, and have gone out of my way to defend him in the past ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17128369 ). I always envisioned whatsapp as a defensive purchase that would stay true to its initial vision (perhaps being used to prop up their other products in an unintrusive manner). But this article makes me realize Mark is s a one-trick advertising…
Imagine how useful it would be if when there is a notification about a friend on Facebook, you could peek it by swiping on the notification in the android drawer like you can with texts, without entering the Facebook app. Nope. Engineers are dedicated there to increasing other things than the utility of the app. Interests aren't aligned with the users. Same with removing chronological feeds. Turn things more and more…
Edit: rephrased one sentence
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You can't complain "they're adding ads!" unless you have a credible solution for somehow bringing in billions of dollars otherwise, and the WhatsApp founders didn't What about business features? Pretty much every business in my country advertises a Whatsapp number, from large companies to mom-and-pops. People contact them over Whatsapp to ask questions, make complaints, order stuff, everything. I can't believe Face…
They mention it in the article: > None of the proposals were as lucrative as Facebook’s ad-based model. “Well, that doesn’t scale,” Ms. Sandberg told the WhatsApp executives of their proposals, according to a person familiar with the matter. I think it's partly a self-selection problem, where the companies which use the service don't have enough revenue to contact their customers through dedicated channels. If you tr…
I'm not sure that's true about the companies which use Whatsapp. They are not using Whatsapp because they can't afford anything else. They're using it because the clients use it. In a large part of the world, everyone uses Whatsapp for everything. Companies go out of their way to support clients via Whatsapp - they even pay for shady unofficial APIs implemented by third parties.
A company unable to afford "Whatsapp Business" probably doesn't need it anyway. They can just continue using regular Whatsapp. No need to force them to use the paid version.
Some of the use cases for Whatsapp Business:
- Customer service.
- Product listings.
- Orders and delivery.
- Knowledge base.
- Notifications (flight status, tickets, etc).
- Promotions.
A lot of these would be attractive for large companies.
Apple should port Messages app to Android and other platforms, this is a great opportunity for them to capitalize on. It is unlikely though, as the strategy is to get people to buy iPhones to get Messages.
As a user I wish that these apps were widely available because I prefer them to alternatives, but as a shareholder I'm not at all upset by this. At least Apple is charging for these privacy-protecting apps, which is the most important detail about WhatsApp: it was already profitable charging users $1/year before acquisition. If Apple ever does release FaceTime and iMessage for Android I hope they charge subscription fees for both.
http://archive.is/pPWAE
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Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but given that it was end-to-end encrypted, ... FB, via the WhatsApp app, have access to your unencrypted messages before the app encrypts them and sends them on. So, there's reason to worry now that FB is in full control. I have no doubt they'll extract data from your conversations and inject targeted ads. Edit: Am I wrong? Do they not have access to the plain text?
With regards to your edit, yes, you are wrong. And I don't mean that in a harsh way, just answering your question. From WhatsApp themselves [0]: "WhatsApp end-to-end encryption ensures only you and the person you're communicating with can read what's sent, and nobody in between, not even WhatsApp. Your messages are secured with locks, and only the recipient and you have the special keys needed to unlock and read your…
Similarly it needs decrypted on the other side and displayed to the other user, at which time the app again has accesd to clear text versions.
I don't believe there's any way to encrypt the message before the app sends the message / while it is displaying to the recipient
"WhatsApp also negotiated for nicer bathrooms, with doors that reach the floor." This is not a norm in silicon valley/states?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You can't complain "they're adding ads!" unless you have a credible solution for somehow bringing in billions of dollars otherwise, and the WhatsApp founders didn't What about business features? Pretty much every business in my country advertises a Whatsapp number, from large companies to mom-and-pops. People contact them over Whatsapp to ask questions, make complaints, order stuff, everything. I can't believe Face…
That doesn't scale nearly to the $20 billion they were bought at. Yelp, which has a similar business model to what you quoted, and is more essential to businesses than WhatsApp, only has a market cap of $3.6 billion.