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Or people would just mass jump to Viber or Telegram or any other messaging app... I can tell you with confidence that very few users in eastern Europe would pa

Or people would just mass jump to Viber or Telegram or any other messaging app... I can tell you with confidence that very few users in eastern Europe would pay even an euro for an app that used to be free and has free alternatives. In fact my friends and I discussed that exact particular scenario when we once got a notification from WhatsApp about future payments.

hpbd 8y ago
Same here in Spain. I mean, let's be honest, it's just a chat application. It is almost trivial to build and maintain. And since it uses your phone number, there is no friction to switch to another app--if they decided to charge for it, Telegram would eat it alive in months.
- code_sloth 8y ago
  > It is almost trivial to build and maintain. I'm interested to know what you've made or helped to make that is more complex and more difficult to maintain than whatsapp.
  - hpbd 8y ago
    Are you suggesting that building a chat application where most of the chats are one-to-one is a complex problem, computer science-wise? The fact that there are hundreds of chat apps, and that they could manage hundreds of millions of users with just 50 employees proves that that is false. I could build a chat app typing with my cock, and I'm sure you could too. We don't do it because we know the market is already saturated as it is... because of how easy it is.
    - dang 8y ago
      Please don't do this here.
  - octorian 8y ago
    I find it amusing just how many people make this assumption up-front. Probably because its one of those "problems" that seems simple on the surface, until you start digging deeper. This gets especially true once you take into account offline delivery, presence management, delivered/read receipts, group/broadcast use cases, efficient use of the network, complexities of reliable/efficient cross-platform media transfer across a variety of formats, and... robust end-to-end encryption.
tinus_hn 8y ago
Talking about things is not the same as doing the things. The network effect is pretty strong in messaging apps.

hpbd 8y ago

Same here in Spain. I mean, let's be honest, it's just a chat application. It is almost trivial to build and maintain. And since it uses your phone number, there is no friction to switch to another app--if they decided to charge for it, Telegram would eat it alive in months.

code_sloth 8y ago
> It is almost trivial to build and maintain. I'm interested to know what you've made or helped to make that is more complex and more difficult to maintain than whatsapp.
- hpbd 8y ago
  Are you suggesting that building a chat application where most of the chats are one-to-one is a complex problem, computer science-wise? The fact that there are hundreds of chat apps, and that they could manage hundreds of millions of users with just 50 employees proves that that is false. I could build a chat app typing with my cock, and I'm sure you could too. We don't do it because we know the market is already saturated as it is... because of how easy it is.
  - dang 8y ago
    Please don't do this here.
- octorian 8y ago
  I find it amusing just how many people make this assumption up-front. Probably because its one of those "problems" that seems simple on the surface, until you start digging deeper. This gets especially true once you take into account offline delivery, presence management, delivered/read receipts, group/broadcast use cases, efficient use of the network, complexities of reliable/efficient cross-platform media transfer across a variety of formats, and... robust end-to-end encryption.

tinus_hn 8y ago

Talking about things is not the same as doing the things. The network effect is pretty strong in messaging apps.