121–130 of 392 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Matrix/Riot and Wire.com (from ex-Skype team), who are working with IETF to standardize an open protocol for E2E encrypted messaging. We need to get back to open protocols.
Interesting info. Do you have some ressources about this effort of standardization?
It's progressing rapidly. Cisco, Google, Facebook & others participating.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are an outlier in that regard. Almost nobody I know is using any other messaging app instead of WhatsApp, and I just graduated out of University so my social circle consists of a lot of fresh engineering grads. It is hard for me to convince even my batchmates to install signal. I think people don't want to install anything else as none of their contacts are on any other platform.
Everybody has a certain messaging app on their phone: it's called SMS. Add one more, that's already two.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish I could upvote your comment more than once. We need to recognize companies like Facebook and Google for what they really are, ad companies. I fear that Microsoft might start taking a similar path with what has happened with Windows 10. I wonder if the products that Google and Facebook offer would actually be of better quality if they actually charged a certain amount to access their services. They have become…
I would like to challenge you on your belief - YouTube offers an Ad-free mode and the subscriber numbers are still considered to be abysmal [1], considering that it has 1B+ total users. What makes you think charging $5 to $10 per month would retain enough users? Moreover, Google made ~$15B in Q2 2018 in USA alone[2]. 86% came from ads, so let's assume Google made ~13B from ads in the USA in Q2-18. Even if we were to…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, they could, as Zuck has ~ 60% of voting rights.
Their stock just took a 20% dive because their main cash flow engine up to this point, the FB app, is showing stagnating engagement. Unless they want to take even great stock hits, which would lead to: greater difficulty to hire, greater difficulty to finance, more employee turnover, decreased ability to fight government regulation, et cetera, then they can't let this investment be wasted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many of their current users would actually be paying $1 a year? Over the long term how many more? Most of these products want to be free. If I'm paying $1 a year to WhatsApp and see my friend using a different app without being charged for it, I feel like I'm getting screwed. I find it hard to think of WhatsApp truly being a long term product with that business model. Two, claiming encouraging more ads on your pl…
Just before WhatsApp was bought by Facebook, they were asking for that $1 per year (I remember paying it) and they had 450 million users, in spite of plenty of chat alternatives being on the market ever since the 90s. I initially ignored it then switched to it after they started to do end to end encryption and encouraged all my friends to use it, instead of Facebook’s Messenger. So yes, they were already popular beca…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From my perspective, any company that goes public will eventually turn to crap (or go through decades-long crap/good cycles). It's not MBAs that drive for growth at all costs - I would argue it's shareholders. Shareholders are greedy and don't care about anything else besides ROI. Even if that means throwing the consumers under the bus in the long run to achieve that.
Yeah but who do you think is pushing the company to bow to the shareholder pressure?
Whatsapp 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From my perspective, any company that goes public will eventually turn to crap (or go through decades-long crap/good cycles). It's not MBAs that drive for growth at all costs - I would argue it's shareholders. Shareholders are greedy and don't care about anything else besides ROI. Even if that means throwing the consumers under the bus in the long run to achieve that.
Yeah but who do you think is pushing the company to bow to the shareholder pressure?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The power of mass usage comes into play here. IIRC, when WhatsApp launched, I was one of the early adopters. As it grew (and it became hugely popular in Brazil, where I lived) they switched to the $1/year model. Current users were auto-enrolled in a "free-for-life" plan. My friends who didn't have WhatApp would still sign up because everyone else was using it and, besides "$1/year? it's almost nothing".
Was it 1 Brazillian Real or 1 USD? In many countries, WhatsApp is the defacto communication platform for businesses to communicate with customers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are completely mistaken if you think adding a subscription-only would not reduce usage of WhatsApp by 10x at least. I am an Indian (WhatsApp's biggest market by far), and know for a fact that hardly 1% of people using it right now in India would be able/willing to set up a payment system AND willing to pay $1 for it (which is not as inexpensive as you think) when there are so many free alternatives. And then it i…
I don't know how you can seriously argue that $1/year is "not as inexpensive as you think." Even in poor countries, that subscription fee is ridiculously low.
There are more people using WhatsApp in India (thanks to popularity of image/video/voice-messages) than who can actually read or have usable Bank accounts. If you think they can pay "$1" for something they can get for free (and have been using for free in past), then you are completely out of touch of reality. Apart from the amount (which is not trivial btw), there is no concept of digital payment for masses.
Also I know it's hard for HN crowd to understand, but the concept of paying to protect "Privacy" is completely foreign for majority of the users in the world. I can guarantee you majority of the users (at least in India) will happily let you track them, show targeted ads at them, give you all the personal details you need, heck even give your their Genome for for free without even blinking an eyelid. And I am not saying this is just because of ignorance on their part, but rather "Who cares if they track me" - I get free services in return.
And this is actually not a bad setup really (again I know HN crowd will get their pitchforks out at it): Show Ads to provide actual free services (like WhatsApp, Google search, Maps, etc) to the masses. It's much better IMO then charging for these services and never have the masses be able to use them (like "GPS" would be a premium service for rich people).
Disclaimer: All opinions expressed are mine and only mine and have no connection to my employer (Google).