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Anyone know how this works? If everything that Facebook claims in that newspaper advertisement is true, then Facebook has - paid $19 billion to buy whatsapp -

Anyone know how this works? If everything that Facebook claims in that newspaper advertisement is true, then Facebook has - paid $19 billion to buy whatsapp - Removed whatsapp’s subscription model and given it away for free - Has been paying the bills for the infrastructure and maintenance costs of a massively popular service - Paid for a full page advertisement in newspapers with claims that whatsapp data will not be monetized like the other Facebook services This makes zero sense to me. Everything about whatsapp looks like an expense to Facebook. Can someone more knowledgeable please help make sense of this situation?

guerrilla 6y ago
Not that I buy what they're selling in your fourth point for the long term, but I imagine ads like on Facebook.
skzv 6y ago
The only rationalization I can imagine is that providing whatsapp potentially prevents the emergence of a competitor who steals users from Facebook through their chat service.
bryan_w 6y ago
Facebook wants to get businesses to use whatsapp and that's where they will get value. Payments + services for businesses will subsidize the E2EE personal chat.
0800LUCAS 6y ago
This is called commoditization. Pretty much every company does this. You offer a product that would normally be paid, for free and gain market share. Then you build a business on top of that customer base you created. That's where WhatsApp comes in for Facebook. They've gained huge market share, now they can attract businesses that want to sell directly to consumers. This is pretty handy and common in countries like Brazil. Before people start shouting against Facebook, I'll reiterate that every company does this: - Microsoft did by driving PCs' prices down so they could gain software market share. - Stripe does it, with things like Stripe Atlas. They commoditize creating your own business by making it very simple. The idea is that [some of] those new businesses will eventually use Stripe and will help the company grow. This is a pretty common pattern.
tinus_hn 6y ago
They have a captive audience of just about everyone. They can put things in the WhatsApp client and everyone will see it. Almost everyone has WhatsApp, much more people than have Facebook. And Facebook is slowly dying. Facebook bought WhatsApp (and also Instagram) so Facebook the company has a future. Because it’s not quite sure Facebook the network has one.
andy1729 6y ago
Facebook has monetization plan for whatsapp in India. In partnership with Reliance Jio, they are launching an e-commerce on whatsapp! So all of these strategies including publishing ad in newspapers makes sense in that regard

guerrilla 6y ago

Not that I buy what they're selling in your fourth point for the long term, but I imagine ads like on Facebook.

skzv 6y ago

The only rationalization I can imagine is that providing whatsapp potentially prevents the emergence of a competitor who steals users from Facebook through their chat service.

bryan_w 6y ago

Facebook wants to get businesses to use whatsapp and that's where they will get value. Payments + services for businesses will subsidize the E2EE personal chat.

0800LUCAS 6y ago

This is called commoditization. Pretty much every company does this. You offer a product that would normally be paid, for free and gain market share. Then you build a business on top of that customer base you created. That's where WhatsApp comes in for Facebook. They've gained huge market share, now they can attract businesses that want to sell directly to consumers. This is pretty handy and common in countries like Brazil. Before people start shouting against Facebook, I'll reiterate that every company does this: - Microsoft did by driving PCs' prices down so they could gain software market share. - Stripe does it, with things like Stripe Atlas. They commoditize creating your own business by making it very simple. The idea is that [some of] those new businesses will eventually use Stripe and will help the company grow. This is a pretty common pattern.

tinus_hn 6y ago

They have a captive audience of just about everyone. They can put things in the WhatsApp client and everyone will see it. Almost everyone has WhatsApp, much more people than have Facebook. And Facebook is slowly dying. Facebook bought WhatsApp (and also Instagram) so Facebook the company has a future. Because it’s not quite sure Facebook the network has one.

andy1729 6y ago

Facebook has monetization plan for whatsapp in India. In partnership with Reliance Jio, they are launching an e-commerce on whatsapp! So all of these strategies including publishing ad in newspapers makes sense in that regard