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I think most people do manage to get at least a buck or two's worth (adjusted for local purchasing power) of use out of WhatsApp (if not facebook.com); surely,
by MajorBee 6y ago
I think most people do manage to get at least a buck or two's worth (adjusted for local purchasing power) of use out of WhatsApp (if not facebook.com); surely, the ability to instantly contact people via text/call/video must be more useful than music streaming?
The problem seems to be that if competing services remain free, then users might start questioning the fee and eventually the base might migrate.
Really, while "free" internet services appear as if they are straight out of a post-work utopia, all they seem to be doing is trivializing the social cost of accurate and insidious targeting of groups jazzed up in sexy terms like "digital marketing" and "adtech".
- Retric 6y agoPeople using WhatsApp are holding a cellphone, so it’s not about suddenly being able to communicate with people.
- MajorBee 6y agoHolding a cellphone is step 1; step 2 is having a tool that can facilitate frictionless communication to one or more people -- easy and cheap enough for pretty much any demographic to grasp. Contacting someone from what was essentially a portable landline is surely very different from using WhatsApp (or any chat application) on a modern smartphone?
- filleduchaos 6y ago> People using WhatsApp are holding a cellphone Have you actually used cellphones? They're extremely expensive to actually communicate with, especially in the countries where WhatsApp is near ubiquitous (and we're talking within country, let's not even get into how horrendously expensive communicating with people internationally can be via regular cell service). I really don't understand why so many people on HN are this adamant about trivialising the value that apps like Whatsapp provide.
- Retric 6y agoWhatsApp adoption clearly demonstrates they are providing value to people. My point is people are looking at what the app does rather than why people use it. Phone conferences for example have been a thing for decades, but they weren’t free.