31–40 of 185 posts
I think i see a pattern: WhatsApp: circumvent cellphone texting charges Airbnb: circumvent hotel laws Uber: circumvent taxi laws Amazon: circumvent state taxes Facebook: circumvent people's anonymity online Google: circumvent copyrights (take people's content slap on ads)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whatsapp is no 1 market share in every country. If not no 1, only lost from wechat
WhatsApp is #1 in 55% of countries. It loses out to Zalo, Line, imo, Facebook Messenger and Blackberry Messenger in various countries. I'm pretty sure you made up every claim you just wrote. Why would you bother doing that?
I think i see a pattern: WhatsApp: circumvent cellphone texting charges Airbnb: circumvent hotel laws Uber: circumvent taxi laws Amazon: circumvent state taxes Facebook: circumvent people's anonymity online Google: circumvent copyrights (take people's content slap on ads)
WhatsApp: cheap plentiful messaging
Airbnb: cheap plentiful vacation rentals
Uber: cheap plentiful taxis
Amazon: cheap plentiful stuff
Facebook: ... umm i'm sure there's something here ...
Google: cheap plentiful access to information
All of these disrupt the slow-moving complacent dinosaurs of the past.
I think i see a pattern: WhatsApp: circumvent cellphone texting charges Airbnb: circumvent hotel laws Uber: circumvent taxi laws Amazon: circumvent state taxes Facebook: circumvent people's anonymity online Google: circumvent copyrights (take people's content slap on ads)
It's super easy to focus on a single metric (user growth) when you have a seemingly unlimited amount of capital and have no immediate pressure to turn _any_ revenue/profit. This article does a massive disservice to those who are not as fortunate who will inevitably be lead into failure. Note, this should not discredit the more interesting and glorified aspects of WhatsApp (strong leadership, technical aptitude, tech…
"But while Facebook has long prided itself on the way its growth team has turned attracting new members into a science, Koum is equally proud of the fact that WhatsApp has not done so. Instead, all of its attention has gone into making the app as simple as possible to get started with—it doesn’t even require you to create a user name or password—and so useful that you’ll tell friends and family about it."
And that's consistent with what I've read of their pre-FB approach. During that period, they definitely didn't have an unlimited amount of capital. They got to 250m users (as of June 2013) [1] on only $8.3 million [2].
So no, I don't think this does a disservice. Especially when you compare it with things like Juicero, which rode a wave of hype into a $120m failure (14.5x what WhatsApp spent). Hype can get you money, but unless you focus intensely on user experience and user value you won't build the audience you need to succeed.
[1] https://www.statista.com/chart/2614/monthly-active-whatsapp-...
[2] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/whatsapp/funding-rou...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They didn't burn through lots of money at all based on facebook financials. And they charge $1/month for the app (although I don't think on all platforms). I don't recall if it was + or -, but their "profitability" was less than $10 million in either direction so they weren't making or losing a ton.
I've used WhatsApp for years and have never been charged a dime.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They didn't burn through lots of money at all based on facebook financials. And they charge $1/month for the app (although I don't think on all platforms). I don't recall if it was + or -, but their "profitability" was less than $10 million in either direction so they weren't making or losing a ton.
I've used WhatsApp for years and have never been charged a dime.
https://www.imore.com/whatsapp-moves-yearly-subscription-pay...
And they succeeded. I've been using it for years and the only new feature I remember is end to end encryption, despite they probably added new features. I don't care about status and stories, if they're still there they managed not to make them in the way of people that only want a SMS alternative. This is great design.
My only wish is that they stay using the very same chatbot backend of Messenger. WhatsApp is the only major chart platform without chatbots and given it's the number one in many countries, included mine, I'm a little tired to tell customers, yes but your customers will have to use Messenger or Telegram (which many people don't even know to exist.)
I think i see a pattern: WhatsApp: circumvent cellphone texting charges Airbnb: circumvent hotel laws Uber: circumvent taxi laws Amazon: circumvent state taxes Facebook: circumvent people's anonymity online Google: circumvent copyrights (take people's content slap on ads)
Or less cynically: WhatsApp: cheap plentiful messaging Airbnb: cheap plentiful vacation rentals Uber: cheap plentiful taxis Amazon: cheap plentiful stuff Facebook: ... umm i'm sure there's something here ... Google: cheap plentiful access to information All of these disrupt the slow-moving complacent dinosaurs of the past.
In the case of WhatsApp, it came from telco monopolies overcharging for a particular use of data. I'm certainly ok with that.
And I was initially excited about Airbnb, rideshare, etc, because some of the cheap comes from finding underutilized resources (an apartment that happened to be empty for a few weeks, people who were going somewhere anyhow) and putting them to work.
But I find the second-order effects fascinating. Certainly some of Airbnb and Uber's cheapness comes from dodging regulation and shifting costs onto other people.
"Privatize the gains, socialize the losses" is undeniably a lucrative business strategy, but it's not one I particularly want to celebrate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've used WhatsApp for years and have never been charged a dime.
I'm not sure what to tell you, I'm not fabricating the fact there was very much a yearly subscription fee associated with the app (and prior to that a price to just download the app). I'm aware it didn't apply universally which is why I specifically said it varied depending on platform. https://www.imore.com/whatsapp-moves-yearly-subscription-pay...
My understanding is that the annual fee was essentially nonexistent, honored far more on the breach than in the observance, though all I know for sure is that they never charged me.