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I'm so disappointed in this. Whatsapp is a functional tool. It was successful since it worked. Facebook has entirely failed to utilise it - to allow external s

• leephillips 6y ago
  I agree with you completely, but “Most of us paid some money for the app”: I didn’t know it was possible to pay for WhatsApp. On what platforms does it cost money?
  • PetitPrince 6y ago
    Initially WhatsApp (before Facebook acquisition) had a (cheap!) one time fee.
    • leephillips 6y ago
      Oh, I guess I was late to the party.
    • RobertoG 6y ago
      I think that was only true for the Apple store, not for Android.
    • vxNsr 6y ago
      And then it was an annual fee, of $1 billed to your cell service provider, people had a much easier time parting with $1 at some future point on their cellphone bill which anyways is dynamic vs $1 now in the app. for the team size the projected amount they’d make was fine. iirc it had like 500mil users and less than 50 ppl in the company.
  • OnlyLys 6y ago
    I used to pay for a WhatsApp subscription. I remember it being a small amount per year. But they did it away with it after Facebook bought them.
    • sefrost 6y ago
      Did it ever actually charge anyone? I remember agreeing to something like $1 per year but never being charged.
      • OnlyLys 6y ago
        Now that you mention it, I do remember being given free extensions to the WhatsApp service. But at some point I recall the extension had run out and I had to pay for it.
    • jbverschoor 6y ago
      It was $1 / year
  • celticninja 6y ago
    the app was 99p when i first downloaded it I think.
  • pmontra 6y ago
    The app on Android has always been free. Sometimes it asked 1 Euro to keep working. I always ignored it. I should also have had to setup payment on Google Play as I never bought an app or anything there. I remember that it stopped working for a few days at least once but Whatsapp was not as important as it is now. I waited and it welcomed me back again. Did I see their bluff? If they'd start asking for money now there will be a mass migration to any other free service. We did it many times with instant messengers on PCs in the 90s and the early 2000s. People ponders about $10 vs $9 but they take no time moving from $1 to free.
  • vl 6y ago
    On iPhone it was $1, since it was easy to take the money. On Android, where most users didn’t have payment setup, it was free with the promise to eventually charge $1 in the future, which they never did. Then Facebook bought them for $19B.
• musha68k 6y ago
  This interview with Jason Calacanis puts Facebook’s acquisition of Whatsapp into better perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2bYwYxqJCM&t=2698s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2bYwYxqJCM&t=2698s
• nabla9 6y ago
  FTC sued Facebook for illegal monopolization over this. For some reason, Zuckerberg does not care. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2020/12/ftc-sues-facebook-illegal-monopolization https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2020/12/ftc-s... >Facebook has engaged in a systematic strategy—including its 2012 acquisition of up-and-coming rival Instagram, its 2014 acquisition of the mobile messaging app WhatsApp, and the imposition of anticompetitive conditions on software developers—to eliminate threats to its monopoly. This course of conduct harms competition, leaves consumers with few choices for personal social networking, and deprives advertisers of the benefits of competition. >The FTC is seeking a permanent injunction in federal court that could, among other things: require divestitures of assets, including Instagram and WhatsApp; prohibit Facebook from imposing anticompetitive conditions on software developers; and require Facebook to seek prior notice and approval for future mergers and acquisitions. When FB bought WhatsApp and Instagram they made explicit promises to regulators not to do this in order to get permission. To make things even worse. Zuck wrote in email “It is better to buy than compete,” after buying Instagram.
  • tchalla 6y ago
    > When FB bought WhatsApp and Instagram they made explicit promises to regulators not to do this in order to get permission Do you have copy of those legal binding promises?
    • newswasboring 6y ago
      Even if its not legally binding, even if they have said something like this in press it would be interesting to know. I cannot find anything though.
      • foolmeonce 6y ago
        If I remember correctly, FB said everything behind closed doors to Signal's leadership and had them blog and handle PR about how much reassurance they received that nothing would change. This is probably why Acton became the largest donor to Signal.
    • 6y ago
• polote 6y ago
  The ARPU that Facebook can make is higher than the average price people are willing to pay to get access to whatsapp. That's all, dont look further
  • PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    People aren’t going to pay for simple services like WhatsApp in 2021. It’s as simple as that. Tech people with a high degree of suspicion and high disposable income are the exception. Even within that group, most people won’t put their money where their mouth is when given the option.
    • Symbiote 6y ago
      How much money is it? I remember WhatsApp being £1/year, or something like that.
      • BoorishBears 6y ago
        Lol people didn't even want to pay that much, it wouldn't ask for that dollar/pound until you'd used it for a year, and most people would ignore the message when it came up Usually it'd just keep working anyways
        • deleted 6y ago
          [deleted]
      • hawk_ 6y ago
        yes but was that enough to cover the costs even then?
        • ForHackernews 6y ago
          Probably. WhatsApp famously supported over a billion users with <100 engineers: https://www.wired.com/2015/09/whatsapp-serves-900-million-users-50-engineers/ https://www.wired.com/2015/09/whatsapp-serves-900-million-us... Prior to Facebook acquisition, WhatsApp was a fantastic engineering effort. I don't know if it's now sunk down to normal FB standards or if they're still good.
• pmlnr 6y ago
  > I'm so disappointed in this. Whatsapp is a functional tool. It was successful since it worked. One decade ago: s/Whatapp/Skype/g s/Facebook/Microsoft/g
  • Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    The niche that Whatsapp filled and which brought it to massive adoption was not the same as Skype's. In South America (and Asia, too, if I understand correctly), Whatsapp was a way to avoid SMS charges on your mobile phone. Because now it is the only way many acquaintances and businesses can be contacted, it will remain entrenched even with this hostile new privacy policy. Skype, on the other hand, was about audio- or videoconferencing from a computer, and so it wasn’t quite as much a part of the ordinary person's life as Whatsapp.
    • pmlnr 6y ago
      > Skype, on the other hand, was about audio- or videoconferencing from a computer, and so it wasn’t quite as much a part of the ordinary person's life as Whatsapp. It was very much a part of everyday life in Hungary. "let's skype" as expression existed.
      • Mediterraneo10 6y ago
        Whatsapp is what people use in some countries for contacting a restaurant to reserve a table, contacting a bike shop to ask if you can bring your bike down for servicing, etc. It has essentially replaced the public telephone network. Skype was never used that universally.
        • pmlnr 6y ago
          > It has essentially replaced the public telephone network. I know. And I think it's insane and horrible.
          • mschuster91 6y ago
• justapassenger 6y ago
  > Facebook has entirely failed to utilise it - to allow external systems to connect in so that businesses can do business on there. They weren’t allowed to do that under old TOS, and the whole point of this update is to allow data sharing when contacting businesses, that will allow building business tools. https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/answering-your-questions-about-whatsapps-privacy-policy/?lang=en https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/answer...
  • colejohnson66 6y ago
    Yep. The second paragraph of the article: > The messaging platform laid out fresh terms in January, aimed at increasing business transactions on the platform.
  • HenryBemis 6y ago
    I understand the objective on making (more) money. Why have 1bn users and make $1 per user? Isn't it better if then have 200mn users and make $20 per user? For me this 'shedding freeloaders and privacy-oriented-users' helps them more than not. We have discussed pricing and volumes of customers before in this forum, multiple times, and for multiple products/services. Is it better to have 1000 users and make $1 from each ($1000), or it is better to have 100 users and make $50 from each ($5000 and less support/maintenance/infrastructure costs)? Facebook's obligation is to the shareholders. Shareholders want bigger pie. Shareholders will get a bigger pie. Apparently FB didn't lose enough users to be scared. Reality/facts drive this. In a related note, I installed Viber. It asked me to share data with advertisers. I tapped to see the list. I scrolled (on my android phone) VERY fast, for 22 seconds to go through it.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • srswtf123 6y ago
      > Facebook's obligation is to the shareholders. This is the problem. Businesses must take on additional legal responsibilities and not simply say “we care about profits — at the expense of everything else”. This will require legislation, and perhaps and end to “MBA-culture”, which seems to promote sociopaths to the highest peaks of society.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• Chris2048 6y ago
  Does Telegram not work? I disagree that WA is mainly popular due to functionality. Yes, it works, but it was mainly network effect (much like FB).
  • hansel_der 6y ago
    telegram works fine. can even use it from pc/tablet if i misplaced my phone ;)
• newswasboring 6y ago
  > to allow external systems to connect in so that businesses can do business on there. The voice calls are also a disaster While I agree with privacy things with you but business on whatsapp doesn't have to require privacy violations. In fact my experience has been good overall. Restaurants have used this as menu replacements, which is the best feature I have seen in a long time. But all they require to do this is give me there number. Facebook had a good feature, they are ruining it because all they know is to make money from advertisement. Its a Pidgeon holed mindset. Also I don't know what you are talking about in terms of voice calls. I make several voicecalls on whatsapp every day for the past >5 years. Never had a problem with them.
• throwaway123x2 6y ago
  Whatsapp voice calls are pretty much the only way I can communicate with foreign family. Actually even locally, sometimes whatsapp calls are much better over wifi than cell calls over towers, it's kind of ridiculous. I don't even bother calling frequent contacts over cell any more.
  • levosmetalo 6y ago
    Only after switching my family to Signal, I noticed how much better international voice and video call over Signal than over Whatsapp. With Whatsapp I would often get lag, echo and generally poor voice quality, with Signal it just works perfectly, even better than regular phone calls. Give it a try and check if it's worth it for you.
    • throwaway123x2 6y ago
      We do get lag on whatsapp every so often. I'll give signal a shot, thanks!
  • hansel_der 6y ago
    huh. your cell network must be pretty bad. i recall only one time where whatsapp voice was ok-ish (better then regular cellphone) quality but the lag totally killed the conversation. when someone calls me via xy-voice i usually deny it and call them back via cell. it became a meme that only cheapos do this some time ago. international might be different as quality and lag issues are more prevalent and money is usually what keeps the conversation short.
    • throwaway123x2 6y ago
      I'm on an AT&T MVNO in a big US city so I don't think so. VoIP is 9/10 times better than copper for me. Sometimes whatsapp does get weirdly laggy and I have to switch back to cell, but the drop in audio quality is noticeable.
• hedora 6y ago
  > Is there a word for anti-innovation? “Creative destruction” is often used to describe the phenomenon you’re describing. It can also mean selling off critical components of a working business for more than the business is (currently) worth.
  • rsj_hn 6y ago
    No, I think that's just the regular destruction.
• ActorNightly 6y ago
  >They've now come along to start messing with the privacy to start selling ads Selling user data and advertising is pretty much the end goal of most "free" applications that suddenly pop up on the scene, and that end goal is set from the start (whether to monetize the app yourself or sell/get acquired by a company that will monetize it).
• joepie91_ 6y ago
  > They've now come along to start messing with the privacy to start selling ads. It is insane that they're able to make such a mess of this. Is there a word for anti-innovation? Yes, "capitalism". The problem with capitalism is that despite lofty claims about it spurring on innovation and such, it pretty much does the opposite. I don't imagine that this will be a popular comment on here, but alas, it is how it is. Innovation means experimentation with uncertain outcomes, but humans (including investors) generally dislike uncertainty in their lives. Those two factors combined mean that from a capitalist perspective, it makes a lot more sense to invest in a tried-and-true method with a veneer of innovation but predictable returns, than to truly innovate. If you truly want innovation, then what you need to do is to take away the personal cost of failure (including but not limited to financially) as much as possible - across the board. The VC startup model is often claimed to do this, but really it just moves the cost of failure to the investors, it does not eliminate it. In a capitalist socioeconomic model, where having a cost of failure is a fundamental tenet of the ideology (it's what defines the hierarchy), this sort of "anti-innovation" will always keep happening. It's simply the logical thing to do under the circumstances.
  • deckard1 6y ago
    > it pretty much does the opposite. I don't imagine that this will be a popular comment on here Silicon Valley and HN talk the talk of innovation, but they back monopolists. Time and again you will see this. Peter Thiel argues for this in his "Competition Is For Losers" talk. The constant theme is this: we want innovation so far as it can bring about abrupt and massive growth and lead to a single company dominating a market. Uber, AirBnb, Facebook, Google, Amazon. These are all businesses backed by VC that are by design monopolies. They create the market and own it. Or, like Uber and AirBnb, they overturn the old order and toss up a wall around it. Profit is at odds with competition. Once a business reaches a certain size, the organization no longer needs innovation. It's much easier to buy rather than build. Building requires figuring out product-market-fit and it's much cheaper and faster to buy a company that already figured that out. That's also why you can have a world-class R&D lab like Xerox and see all of your innovations brought to market by outsiders (Apple + Microsoft in the '80s). Your organization is not necessarily equipped to understand how to utilize the innovations it creates. It doesn't understand how to sell or market the inventions. So it doesn't. > If you truly want innovation, then what you need to do is to take away the personal cost of failure We already reduce financial risk with bankruptcy laws. Reducing risk is one thing, but if you lean too far into that with VC money you can end up with WeWork or Theranos. Or any of the 2000s dot-com. Businesses that are little more than inflating worthless assets for some fraudulent payoff. Reducing risk isn't the key. You need skin in the game. But more important, you need people with drive. People that like winning more than they hate losing.
• bserge 6y ago
  I started getting messages from Indeed on Whatsapp that I never signed up for. It was tolerable tbh (I'm looking for work) even though their results were shit. One day they spammed like 20 messages in a row, so I blocked them. If blocking was not allowed, I would just uninstall Whatsapp.
• swiley 6y ago
  > Whatsapp is a functional tool. It was successful since it worked. No! Whatsapp is a service! Lots of people have been warning you that this is what happens when you get tools and services confused. I had warned people on here about this exact thing happening years ago when everyone thought it was the new hotness. People on this board were telling me I'm being overly cautious but this happens almost every time. Stop tying your identity and data to services if you're not 100% ok with them completely screwing you over! Jabber has OMEMO and we have deltachat and autocrypt for email now. There is no reason to ever do this!
• ToFab123 6y ago
  What do you mean by that most of us have paid some money for the app? Personally I have never given any money to whatsapp
• eloisius 6y ago
  It’s so bad that I can’t understand why LINE is only popular in Asia. It has all the good parts of WhatsApp plus a bunch of silly goodies like stickers, open groups, mobile payments, etc. Businesses have “official” accounts that can be operated by employees as well as bot interactions.