Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#171

Post by jklinger410 » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 9:55 PM UTC

russellbeattie wrote: post #78

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,…

Many great products never get brought to market because of "lack of scale."

The second renaissance of this unicorn investment bullshit will be micro-services run by small teams that bootstrap and market there way into profitability instead of asking millionaires to sign them blank checks hoping they will be the next SNAP.

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#172

Post by ilovecaching » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 9:59 PM UTC

TBH I prefer ads. As a small business owner, online ads have allowed me to grow my extremely niche business without spending a large bundle of funding, and I'm sure it's helped countless more small businesses compete against the big box stores that can afford to do their own advertising. From a user perspective, the product can be given out for free, which for social media is a must, unless we want to start seeing classest messaging platforms excluding people in countries who can't even afford 1 dollar or make digital payments. If I was going to let ads bother me I'd be much more upset about someone owning my search engine, phone, email, personal documents, cloud storage, etc... who could cross references those sources to build an accurate picture of my identity, rather than someone just owning my social media accounts where I'm just about as fake as necessary to make my grandma think I'm still going to church.

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#173

Post by salex89 » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 10:03 PM UTC

There is nothing I would like more than Facebook to sell WhatsApp, so I'm at least a bit more out of their claws or, alternately, for WhatsApp to be ruined and all my friends go to some other messaging app. I've been a long user of WA and really love it, but I'm not a fan of FB, although I do have an account, but rarely use it for messaging.

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#174

Post by bodas » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 10:03 PM UTC

yayana wrote: post #46

mayankkaizen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can install (and have installed) as many chatting apps as possible. But what is the point? I mean I will have to use the app everyone else is using (which in my case is Whatsapp). Honestly speaking, I actually tried to ditch whatsapp but failed.

> Honestly speaking, I actually tried to ditch whatsapp but failed. I found it hard to get people to switch to signal because there are no user visible benefits and it's a little less polished. But the first day Whatsapp puts in ads..

I doubt it, Signal is terrible. Extremely sterile user experience, almost the complete opposite of something like LINE. They need to make it more fun.

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#175

Post by scblock » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 10:03 PM UTC

Next up: nonlinear timeline!

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#176

Post by krn » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 10:10 PM UTC

Ensorceled wrote: post #114

nell wrote: post #58

I wonder if that is why they opened up their API to Twilio. Twilio can now pay Whatsapp whatever it has to pay the carriers to send/receive SMS.

Given how little Twilio charges per messsage, this can not be a serious money maker for Whatsapp.

I wouldn't call Twilio charges per message in Germany ($0.0850) or in Brazil ($0.0570) "little". WhatsApp is much bigger in these markets than in the US.

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#177

Post by ilovecaching » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 10:11 PM UTC

russellbeattie wrote: post #78

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,…

And what about all the small businesses that could grow from providing them an advertising outlet to their customers on WhatsApp? What about countries where it's difficult to make online payments, or credit card fraud is rampant? What about processing fees? What about necessary price fluctuations as the infrastructure grows? What about user growth?

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#178

Post by randomsearch » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 10:12 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #113

Marsymars wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because as someone who's willing to pay to not have ads, ads are a non-starter for me. If they're forced upon me, I'll switch products, and force anyone I communicate with to switch products to continue communicating with me. (If an individual won't install Signal, I'll drop down to SMS/email for them.)

In my experience, no, you can’t force alternatives on your friends and family, unless it’s an alternative they already have. No, they won’t install Signal. If that were a real possibility, you would have done it already. So SMS it is. But I wonder, isn’t SMS more expensive than $1 / year? SMS has had outrageously high rates compared with 3G. In some parts of the world that’s precisely the reason for WhatsApp’s popula…

My non-tech friends can and have and do install signal, I’m pleased to say! It costs nothing, takes them a few minutes, and there’s no downside for them. I use it all the time.

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#179

Post by sonnyblarney » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 10:12 PM UTC

xkjkls wrote: post #163

sonnyblarney wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Square and Whatsapp are basically not comparable business entities.

If WhatsApp decided to move to payments, it is the closest analog.

No, square is fundamentally geared towards long-tail consumer retail, not peer-to-peer payments, and it's very credit card oriented. They still would not even be comparable.

Re: Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

#180

Post by robryan » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 10:13 PM UTC

danirod wrote: post #14

Remember when WhatsApp required a subscription? One of the first changes made by Facebook after purchasing WhatsApp was to make it available for free. And now they're complaining they can't milk it enough? Oh dear. I know that a percentage of WhatsApp users would stop using the app if they started requiring a payment again –because apparently paying $1 per year for using an application on your $999 phone is outrageou…

Doesn’t Facebook make $100per user per year in the US off ads? If WhatsApp can get anywhere near that there would be no reasistic price point which people would actually pay that would work for Facebook.