61–70 of 78 posts
Selling ads isn't cool. You know what's cool? Giving your user info to Facebook to mine and monetize.
The worst is that I cannot convince all my address book list to not use whatsapp anymore.
We are all in a trap!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Users pay $1/year after the first year. At almost half a billion active users that's a pretty great business model.
$500M/yr in raw revenue? How do you grow from there? Lower costs? Grow your revenue? Half a billion is getting close to max adoption. Do you up your prices?
And although there is likely a slow take up by the elderly, the next generation are all new customers. The 1/5th smartphone ratio can only go up. (This POV is of course assuming WhatsApp wins the messaging war, which is what FB is betting on)
The more I think about the acquisition the more I wished WhatsApp would've stayed on their own. $500 million a year is great. I wish they would've pulled a Craigslist and become more of a cultural institution than another acquisition; focus more on making chat amazing. I feel like that would've had a larger, net positive effect on the public consciousness. People would see WhatsApp doing it for what's right(don't be…
EBay owns around 25% of Craigslist.
The more I think about the acquisition the more I wished WhatsApp would've stayed on their own. $500 million a year is great. I wish they would've pulled a Craigslist and become more of a cultural institution than another acquisition; focus more on making chat amazing. I feel like that would've had a larger, net positive effect on the public consciousness. People would see WhatsApp doing it for what's right(don't be…
> "I wish they would've pulled a Craigslist..." EBay owns around 25% of Craigslist.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's great, but it's not $19B great. [edit] Seems my comment is being misunderstood. My point was that FB wouldn't pay $19B unless they planned to monetize beyond the $1/user/year model.
WhatsApp was not worth $19B, it was worth $19B to Facebook .
What works for Whatsapp didn't work for many others and vice versa.
Ads are necessary evil, sort of like taxes. There is a price for Whatsapp's sainthood their very users are paying for with other currencies. One way or another it is an exchange.
Saint my ass.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Remember how small Whatsapp is (~50 employees). They don't need to do any of those things to have a fantastic business for a long time to come.
What's to stop a free alternative like Telegram taking all the market? Smartphone adoption is still happening here, and I use the rates are much lower in developing countries. Once word gets around maybe everyone will switch.
The key though is that Telegram actually isn't free to consumers when compared to Whatsapp. At $1/year + access to everyone who is already on network vs. $0/year + access to smaller network+need to invite your friends to build that network Whatsapp is actually (significantly) cheaper. If it was more expensive per year I think they'd be giving some room, but no one is even going to notice getting billed.
There is zero guarantee that there won't be another such paradigm shift in the near (even super-near) future that would displace Whatsapp overnight. And unlike Facebook, which has tons of features (too many, yes, but that makes it unlikely that someone can replace Facebook with any single solution, which drastically slows down people jumping platforms), they're a one-trick pony banking everything on being SMS, only better. The second something happens and this stops being such a big deal to their users, Whatsapp loses everything. They have no means to ensure long-term user loyalty, they have no other value proposition, they're not ahead of the curve in any other relevant way. If (or rather, when) the Whatsapp bubble pops, FB is left with nothing.
when advertising is involved you the user are the product How about: If you're work at a startup where the business model is 'get acquired,' you are the product. Incidentally, I don't really agree with either of these statements, at least not in their strong forms. The problem with advertising is usually bad advertising. Ads (especially online ads) are usually annoying in inverse proportion to their value. Spam is on…
You're missing one more part of the issue with advertising: brainwashing. In some ways, I'd rather have a silly, mismatched and ugly ad than an ad that's actually effective at altering my behavior. Pretty much the only situation when I want to see an ad is when I'm looking for a specific product, and there always used to be venues that were very effective at that (specialist press, classifieds, or popular streets whe…
The consequences may not be as grave as they look at first sight, but it's still a very uncomfortable truth. Recognizing my own vulnerability to ads is one of the many reasons why I block advertising.