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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? Fo

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.
- thereare5lights 6y ago
  Maximizing shareholder value was one of the most toxic ideologies of the late 20th century. I've seen more people speaking out against this recently and hopefully this idea gets put to bed like "trickle down" economics.
estaseuropano 6y ago
Indeed Viber is even worse. At least somewhat transparent about it but certainly not a possible destination for privacy focused users.
another-dave 6y ago
That may be straightforwardly true for another service — Maps, Email, etc. — but the draw of a messaging platform is its network effect. "All the freeloaders" is half the reason that WhatsApp is popular: no matter who you want to contact, they likely had a WhatsApp account — from your elderly mother to your college friends to the B&B that you're going to stay at abroad. If it goes from "everyone I know is on WhatsApp" to "1 in 20 people I know are on WhatsApp" maybe I'm less inclined to continue to fork over $20.
- tgragnato 6y ago
  > If it goes from "everyone I know is on WhatsApp" to "1 in 20 people I know are on WhatsApp" maybe I'm less inclined to continue to fork over $20. Let’s be real, I don’t think this is a realistic ratio of users lost. They made a cost benefits analysis and are going on with the plan.
jariel 6y ago
Social Networks have network externalizations. The presence of the 'freeloaders' makes the value of the network.
efdee 6y ago
> Why have 1bn users and make $1 per user? Isn't it better if then have 200mn users and make $20 per user? In one case you make $1BN and in the other you make $4BN. So yes, the latter would objectively be better. :-)
- Darmody 6y ago
  Not necessarily. Sometimes more users is better than higher revenue. If those 200 million users have to choose between paying you $20/year or paying only $1 and joining a network with 1 billion users...they'll probably choose the later. Then you won't see those 4 billion dollars.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    It depends on the business. If users cost $0.05 / user to support, that's very different than $1 / user. Software products scale... but they don't scale completely free.
    - Darmody 6y ago
      Yes, of course, but we're talking about messaging apps like Whatsapp.
      - ethbr0 6y ago
        And in the 90s, that would have been bandwidth. Now, widely used messaging platform also means content moderation team and local law enforcement alignment.
feanaro 6y ago
> Facebook's obligation is to the shareholders. Shareholders want bigger pie. Shareholders will get a bigger pie. The lesson is then that it is in the best interest of users to steer clear of any shareholder-owned network in as wide arc as possible.

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.

thereare5lights 6y ago
Maximizing shareholder value was one of the most toxic ideologies of the late 20th century. I've seen more people speaking out against this recently and hopefully this idea gets put to bed like "trickle down" economics.

estaseuropano 6y ago

Indeed Viber is even worse. At least somewhat transparent about it but certainly not a possible destination for privacy focused users.

another-dave 6y ago

That may be straightforwardly true for another service — Maps, Email, etc. — but the draw of a messaging platform is its network effect. "All the freeloaders" is half the reason that WhatsApp is popular: no matter who you want to contact, they likely had a WhatsApp account — from your elderly mother to your college friends to the B&B that you're going to stay at abroad. If it goes from "everyone I know is on WhatsApp" to "1 in 20 people I know are on WhatsApp" maybe I'm less inclined to continue to fork over $20.

tgragnato 6y ago
> If it goes from "everyone I know is on WhatsApp" to "1 in 20 people I know are on WhatsApp" maybe I'm less inclined to continue to fork over $20. Let’s be real, I don’t think this is a realistic ratio of users lost. They made a cost benefits analysis and are going on with the plan.

jariel 6y ago

Social Networks have network externalizations. The presence of the 'freeloaders' makes the value of the network.

efdee 6y ago

> Why have 1bn users and make $1 per user? Isn't it better if then have 200mn users and make $20 per user? In one case you make $1BN and in the other you make $4BN. So yes, the latter would objectively be better. :-)

Darmody 6y ago
Not necessarily. Sometimes more users is better than higher revenue. If those 200 million users have to choose between paying you $20/year or paying only $1 and joining a network with 1 billion users...they'll probably choose the later. Then you won't see those 4 billion dollars.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  It depends on the business. If users cost $0.05 / user to support, that's very different than $1 / user. Software products scale... but they don't scale completely free.
  - Darmody 6y ago
    Yes, of course, but we're talking about messaging apps like Whatsapp.
    - ethbr0 6y ago
      And in the 90s, that would have been bandwidth. Now, widely used messaging platform also means content moderation team and local law enforcement alignment.

feanaro 6y ago

> Facebook's obligation is to the shareholders. Shareholders want bigger pie. Shareholders will get a bigger pie. The lesson is then that it is in the best interest of users to steer clear of any shareholder-owned network in as wide arc as possible.