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Whatsapp got bought by Facebook which changed their strategy 100%. They used to ask users for a $1/year payment or something like that, but after being bought b

Whatsapp got bought by Facebook which changed their strategy 100%. They used to ask users for a $1/year payment or something like that, but after being bought by Facebook, they now focus on just providing data to Facebook. I think one of the founders also have openly gone out and regretted the sale to Facebook - "At the end of the day, I sold my company. I sold my users’ privacy to a larger benefit. I made a choice and a compromise. I live with that every day." - https://www.fastcompany.com/90242892/whatsapp-cofounder-explains-why-he-left-facebook https://www.fastcompany.com/90242892/whatsapp-cofounder-expl... If we manage to keep the governance of the client and protocol open and participatory, I'm sure we can have clients/protocols that survive for longer. Just like we did with email and IRC in the past.

Nowado 6y ago
So the plan is to keep on creating new protocols so that there's frequent, although not constant, stream of services that are already user-friendly, but not optimized for milking data yet? This doesn't strike me as a 'solution'.
- capableweb 6y ago
  Not unless you misunderstand how protocols work. Milking data, user friendliness and open protocols are orthogonal areas that gives different benefits. User friendliness makes it so people actually use the product, open protocols forces the service/application providers to care more about the user (otherwise they leave for something else, taking their data with them) and milking data can be done no matter how good/bad user experience is and if the protocol is closed/open.
skinnymuch 6y ago
Barely any one paid the $1/year. My estimation from looking into this before is less than 2% of Android users ever paid. At most half of iPhone users paid $1 as whatsapp would switch between free or paid to get it. The founder regretting is a joke. Facebook isn’t buying you for $19B to leave the company alone forever. The guy is worth multiple billions. No one told him when it was being sold that privacy won’t remain the same? That seems too unlikely.

Nowado 6y ago

So the plan is to keep on creating new protocols so that there's frequent, although not constant, stream of services that are already user-friendly, but not optimized for milking data yet? This doesn't strike me as a 'solution'.

capableweb 6y ago
Not unless you misunderstand how protocols work. Milking data, user friendliness and open protocols are orthogonal areas that gives different benefits. User friendliness makes it so people actually use the product, open protocols forces the service/application providers to care more about the user (otherwise they leave for something else, taking their data with them) and milking data can be done no matter how good/bad user experience is and if the protocol is closed/open.

skinnymuch 6y ago

Barely any one paid the $1/year. My estimation from looking into this before is less than 2% of Android users ever paid. At most half of iPhone users paid $1 as whatsapp would switch between free or paid to get it. The founder regretting is a joke. Facebook isn’t buying you for $19B to leave the company alone forever. The guy is worth multiple billions. No one told him when it was being sold that privacy won’t remain the same? That seems too unlikely.