What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it? • Hacker News Board

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#51

Post by paxys » Tue, Jun 01, 2021, 4:48 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #46

paxys wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp wouldn't exist today (at least not at the current scale) had Facebook not bought it. They have operated for over a decade now, serve 2 billion users, and have made close to zero revenue the entire time.

That's not true. They were charging $1/user/year (possibly only on Android and in some countries) before their acquisition. And their costs were low. I'm pretty sure they were profitable.

Nope. Facebook disclosed their numbers in the acquisition filings. E.g. from https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/032515/whats... –

> WhatsApp’s six-month revenue for the first half of 2014 totaled $15.9 million and the company incurred a staggering net loss of $232.5 million, though the majority of that loss was for share-based compensation.

WhatsApp was always running on VC cash.

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#52

Post by Koenvh » Tue, Jun 01, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

Ellipse0934 wrote: post #20

capableweb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I don't understand that continues to happen in politics, technology and many other facets of life. Why do you have to either fully support or fully be against a entity? You can selectively like some things someone does while not liking other things they do, same goes for corporations. You also don't have to justify bad things by listing good things they've also done, you can just like the good thing…

Most political systems tend to converge into a two-party system. I think the internet has made people more vocal but access to opposing and nuanced viewpoints has made a lot of people grey. I know that's the case for me, not sure if it encapsulates the majority.

Do you have a source for that? Coming from a country where there are 16 different parties in parliament (the Netherlands), neighboured by two countries which each have at least five parties in parliament (Belgium and Germany), I find that statement difficult to believe.

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#53

Post by Koenvh » Tue, Jun 01, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

Ellipse0934 wrote: post #20

capableweb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I don't understand that continues to happen in politics, technology and many other facets of life. Why do you have to either fully support or fully be against a entity? You can selectively like some things someone does while not liking other things they do, same goes for corporations. You also don't have to justify bad things by listing good things they've also done, you can just like the good thing…

Most political systems tend to converge into a two-party system. I think the internet has made people more vocal but access to opposing and nuanced viewpoints has made a lot of people grey. I know that's the case for me, not sure if it encapsulates the majority.

Do you have a source for that? Most of Western Europe has more than two parties in parliament, thus I find that hard to believe.

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#54

Post by variable11 » Tue, Jun 01, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

Whatsapp managers and engineers belong in prison for multiple violations of privacy laws and data theft across the globe. You are criminals.

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#55

Post by mdon » Tue, Jun 01, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #51

nicoburns wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. They were charging $1/user/year (possibly only on Android and in some countries) before their acquisition. And their costs were low. I'm pretty sure they were profitable.

Nope. Facebook disclosed their numbers in the acquisition filings. E.g. from https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/032515/whats... – > WhatsApp’s six-month revenue for the first half of 2014 totaled $15.9 million and the company incurred a staggering net loss of $232.5 million, though the majority of that loss was for share-based compensation. WhatsApp was always running on VC cash.

Not true - that loss was based on employee compensation due to the size of the deal and realized stock appreciation. WhatsApp could have covered operating costs indefinitely from user $1 payments.

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#56

Post by akarma » Tue, Jun 01, 2021, 5:00 PM UTC

ProAm wrote: post #34

jkukul wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard about antitrust laws? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law These types of laws exist to prevent monopolies being created after a M&A. Whatsapp's acquisition was in fact investigated and approved both by relevant commissions in US and EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law

Right but I didnt see anything in this acquisition that would trigger antitrust (WhatsApp only, I did see issues with Instagram). And independent messaging app that didnt have ads seems like a safe purchase from a legal standpoint. That is why I asked the OP why he was surprised it was allowed.

(I'm not the above commenter but also disagreed with your prior comment)

> The creators just sold it, private company, private service they could have sold it to anyone they wanted.

I understand and agree with your take now, but this sentence from your last comment seemed like a different line of thinking.

If a creator can just sell it to anyone because it's a private company, that's false and that's a different argument than the specifics of this case not triggering antitrust law.

WhatsApp being bought by Apple could have easily been construed as anticompetitive, so it wasn't just that a creator can sell a private company to anyone they want. (Also, Facebook Messenger could be a reason that Facebook's purchase of WhatsApp is anticompetitive, but neither service was as prevalent at the time).

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#57

Post by acqq » Tue, Jun 01, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #51

nicoburns wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. They were charging $1/user/year (possibly only on Android and in some countries) before their acquisition. And their costs were low. I'm pretty sure they were profitable.

Nope. Facebook disclosed their numbers in the acquisition filings. E.g. from https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/032515/whats... – > WhatsApp’s six-month revenue for the first half of 2014 totaled $15.9 million and the company incurred a staggering net loss of $232.5 million, though the majority of that loss was for share-based compensation. WhatsApp was always running on VC cash.

It doesn't seem to be too relevant: it's the year of acquisition and the loss is due to the "share based compensation". Remembering what I've read, before they were really small company with small number of servers properly handling all the uses.

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#58

Post by mattgreenrocks » Tue, Jun 01, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #5

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook's big enough that we don't even have to stop fighting them while we support them in this endeavour.

This is something I don't understand that continues to happen in politics, technology and many other facets of life. Why do you have to either fully support or fully be against a entity? You can selectively like some things someone does while not liking other things they do, same goes for corporations. You also don't have to justify bad things by listing good things they've also done, you can just like the good thing…

> People are so black and white

The social benefits of this type of thinking are too big to ignore for many people. You get to be a part of a group. (I'm going to skip any hand-wavey allusions to evolutionary psych because they don't really add much.)

I get the appeal. I'm just not always one of them. I'm sure I'm black and white on some things, but I always joke that my teamwork/togetherness gene is busted for the most part.

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#59

Post by pegasus » Tue, Jun 01, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

ProAm wrote: post #35

bidirectional wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

M&A is regulated, it's not a totally free market. If company A buys company B, the government allowed them to do so. There are plenty of scenarios where they won't.

I agree with that but a independent messaging app seems perfectly safe for FB to purchase. Instagram a little different but I never saw the government being concerned or potentially not allow this one to go through. That is why I was curious about the OPs perspective because maybe they did see something (not counting hindsight and that FB is a terrible company, but only in the moment)

It's simple: OP's perspective is that even though the purchase was not stopped, it should have been. That to you it seemed a perfectly safe purchase is completely irellevant to his argument.

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#60

Post by Sleepytime » Tue, Jun 01, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

bidirectional wrote: post #15

dman wrote: post #9

As a user I find this section very intriguing. ************************* "Can WhatsApp work with law enforcement without traceability? WhatsApp respects the important work law enforcement does to keep people safe. Our dedicated team reviews and responds to valid law enforcement requests. We respond to valid requests by providing the limited categories of information available to us, consistent with applicable law and…

Metadata I imagine? e.g. who is person X communicating with, when are they active, etc. Could be extremely useful if you discover someone unreachable abroad is coordinating with people within your jurisdiction.

"we kill people based on metadata"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxwEwwlDM8Q