23 ms·

Whatsapp was ethical, the problem is with the company that bought them. And they didn't necessarily know that when they sold (even if, an offer of that size is

by dx034 10y ago

Whatsapp was ethical, the problem is with the company that bought them. And they didn't necessarily know that when they sold (even if, an offer of that size is hard to decline).

stephenr 10y ago
I call bullshit on not knowing that Facebook is a privacy whoring company before WhatsApp sold to them.
- kkoomi 10y ago
  Hey, who cares about ethics when there's billions of dollars on the table /s
  - antihero 10y ago
    I mean who wouldn't have realistically accepted literally billions of dollars to sell an app people willingly install on their phones? Ethics is all relative.
    - stephenr 10y ago
      Were they profitable before? Were the controlling parties financially comfortable? If my company is profitable (or has revenue growth and is likely to become profitable) and a scummy company wants to buy it, I'm going to say no. Hard as it may be for some of the HN/VC crowd to believe, but there are people out there who start companies with their own money, because they believe in something. At no point does "find some fat megacorp to buy us our" enter the game plan.
kbart 10y ago
That's exactly my point. If company is ethical today, it doesn't mean it will be tomorrow, for whatever reasons.
newscracker 10y ago
[Harsh words ahead] Hindsight is 20/20, and based on that I personally would say WhatsApp was not ethical even when it was a standalone company. If it had been so, it wouldn't have allowed Facebook to acquire it in the first place! I realize this sounds harsh and probably implies bad motives on the owners, but whatever WhatsApp wrote in its blogs pre-acquisition were all principles that could be sold at the right price. That's exactly what it has come to now that we know how it's being used. I would also consider it insulting to human intelligence if the WhatsApp founders had truly believed that they would be able to continue with their stated privacy stance after being bought by Facebook, of all companies (what they wrote on the blog at that time can be seen as public posturing).
- SixSigma 10y ago
  You don't need hindsight. You just need to look at the many many times it has happened before. Cash pressure + lots of valuable assets liquidised legally that just require a change to ToS = said assets for sale + temporary bad PR.
geofft 10y ago
> an offer of that size is hard to decline Ethics isn't about doing the right thing when it's easy.

by dx034 10y ago

Whatsapp was ethical, the problem is with the company that bought them. And they didn't necessarily know that when they sold (even if, an offer of that size is hard to decline).

stephenr 10y ago

I call bullshit on not knowing that Facebook is a privacy whoring company before WhatsApp sold to them.

kkoomi 10y ago
Hey, who cares about ethics when there's billions of dollars on the table /s
- antihero 10y ago
  I mean who wouldn't have realistically accepted literally billions of dollars to sell an app people willingly install on their phones? Ethics is all relative.
  - stephenr 10y ago
    Were they profitable before? Were the controlling parties financially comfortable? If my company is profitable (or has revenue growth and is likely to become profitable) and a scummy company wants to buy it, I'm going to say no. Hard as it may be for some of the HN/VC crowd to believe, but there are people out there who start companies with their own money, because they believe in something. At no point does "find some fat megacorp to buy us our" enter the game plan.

kbart 10y ago

That's exactly my point. If company is ethical today, it doesn't mean it will be tomorrow, for whatever reasons.

newscracker 10y ago

[Harsh words ahead] Hindsight is 20/20, and based on that I personally would say WhatsApp was not ethical even when it was a standalone company. If it had been so, it wouldn't have allowed Facebook to acquire it in the first place! I realize this sounds harsh and probably implies bad motives on the owners, but whatever WhatsApp wrote in its blogs pre-acquisition were all principles that could be sold at the right price. That's exactly what it has come to now that we know how it's being used. I would also consider it insulting to human intelligence if the WhatsApp founders had truly believed that they would be able to continue with their stated privacy stance after being bought by Facebook, of all companies (what they wrote on the blog at that time can be seen as public posturing).

SixSigma 10y ago
You don't need hindsight. You just need to look at the many many times it has happened before. Cash pressure + lots of valuable assets liquidised legally that just require a change to ToS = said assets for sale + temporary bad PR.

geofft 10y ago

> an offer of that size is hard to decline Ethics isn't about doing the right thing when it's easy.