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For 8.5 billion, you could hire a couple dozen of the highest class escorts forever and travel the world in a super-yacht with them for sixty years. Or you cou

by pstack 15y ago

For 8.5 billion, you could hire a couple dozen of the highest class escorts forever and travel the world in a super-yacht with them for sixty years. Or you could pay a ton of people that you hate the most a dollar per hit to punch themselves in the face for a year straight. Or you could build your own Skype service from scratch and have about $8,499,500,000 left over to maintain and market it.

meterplech 15y ago
Yeah, but how much would you have to spend to get 500 million users, many of which you already have credit card information for? Not saying this acquisition was necessarily worth the cost at all- but it wasn't just about the technology.
- guygurari 15y ago
  Pay each user who signs up and uses your service $10. You'd still have $3.5 billion in change.
  - mikle 15y ago
    This seems like a sustainable business plan :)
  - incomethax 15y ago
    If only user acquisition costs were that low...
- pstack 15y ago
  Where are these 500 million users? Do you mean the Skype user base? Skype has 170 million users. Of those, only 1% actually pay for the service. So you're probably paying for 1.7m people's credit card information and accounts. Or do you mean 500 million Microsoft users? (Not being an ass, I honestly wasn't clear which users who were referring to in the process here.)
  - meterplech 15y ago
    From SFGate article about the acquisition: "Skype's huge user base- more than 660 million users, including more than 120 million active of 'connected' users." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/05/12/businessinsider-why-microsoft-bought-skype-an-insider-explains-2011-5.DTL http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/05/12/... The 500million user figure was from a big TechCrunch article from 2009. http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/skype-hits-521-million-users-and-185-million-in-quarterly-revenue/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/skype-hits-521-million-user... Again, I'm not trying to necessarily argue that this acquisition was worth it. But, there is more than technological value here. There is a huge user base here.
danielha 15y ago
I like that somehow you did the escort math and came up with about 60 years of luxury travel.
- keefe 15y ago
  escort quality is like a gas, it expands to fill the bank account available for it

by pstack 15y ago

meterplech 15y ago

Yeah, but how much would you have to spend to get 500 million users, many of which you already have credit card information for? Not saying this acquisition was necessarily worth the cost at all- but it wasn't just about the technology.

guygurari 15y ago
Pay each user who signs up and uses your service $10. You'd still have $3.5 billion in change.
- mikle 15y ago
  This seems like a sustainable business plan :)
- incomethax 15y ago
  If only user acquisition costs were that low...
pstack 15y ago
Where are these 500 million users? Do you mean the Skype user base? Skype has 170 million users. Of those, only 1% actually pay for the service. So you're probably paying for 1.7m people's credit card information and accounts. Or do you mean 500 million Microsoft users? (Not being an ass, I honestly wasn't clear which users who were referring to in the process here.)
- meterplech 15y ago
  From SFGate article about the acquisition: "Skype's huge user base- more than 660 million users, including more than 120 million active of 'connected' users." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/05/12/businessinsider-why-microsoft-bought-skype-an-insider-explains-2011-5.DTL http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/05/12/... The 500million user figure was from a big TechCrunch article from 2009. http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/skype-hits-521-million-users-and-185-million-in-quarterly-revenue/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/skype-hits-521-million-user... Again, I'm not trying to necessarily argue that this acquisition was worth it. But, there is more than technological value here. There is a huge user base here.

danielha 15y ago

I like that somehow you did the escort math and came up with about 60 years of luxury travel.

keefe 15y ago
escort quality is like a gas, it expands to fill the bank account available for it