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I use Telegram a lot and would gladly pay for it. However, that route is not so easy. People in Latin American countries can't really afford to pay for apps. If

I use Telegram a lot and would gladly pay for it. However, that route is not so easy. People in Latin American countries can't really afford to pay for apps. If they have to choose between a free WhatsApp (who everybody uses) and a fee (which can be high in real terms for poorer countries) they will choose WhatsApp. They can also do what companies like Steam and Netflix do, charge a differentiated fee by country. Some games which cost 20 US dollars might cost less than 2 US dollars in countries like Argentina (Steam)

zpeti 6y ago
This is basically why Facebook doesn't offer a free option either, they make hardly anything from third world countries per user, but prob $50+ per year from USA users. So - third world countries can't pay a subscription, and for USA its just not worth it because hardly anyone would pay $50+ a year to use Facebook. Catch 22.
thatguy0900 6y ago
How much money does whatsapp actually get from people in those countries? I was under the impression that ad revenue from third world users was very low. How much would it be to charge them the same amount they would get from ads?
ignoramous 6y ago
> However, that route is not so easy. People in Latin American countries can't really afford to pay for apps. AdGuard and Cloudflare (at least for Warp+) adjust their monthly and annual subscription rates based on location. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index
- iso8859-1 6y ago
  This incentivizes inequality. I live in Mexico, earning 10x more than most, yet I could pay less.
  - rchaud 6y ago
    It also improves affordability for those that don't make 10x the national average.
  - skinnymuch 6y ago
    Yeah. Similarly, people pay for many services, Apple, Netflix, these, by switching locations. It isn’t exactly fair either for people on the poverty line in the US to pay the US prices when other places don’t have to.
Aachen 6y ago
> less than 2 USD [per month] How about 2USD/year? WhatsApp ran on 1 until Facebook bought it. I did the math at the time: with the users per server and separate user stats they were publishing, each employee could be paid very, very generously. Don't quote me on it but I think it was something like half or a quarter million per year. Yes, they were small and growing, as you grow you get more overhead as you try new things like eg. business customers or whatever, so maybe it can't be 1/year anymore (also because a decade of inflation happened in the meantime), but you can get very close to that or choose to operate in low and middle income countries at break-even or a small loss. I wouldn't find that unfair (as someone who earns in the top 1% of worldwide incomes, household income like 150k/year -- yes I'm looking into how to put that boatload to good use -- and who would be paying the compensatory high price).
- skinnymuch 6y ago
  This trope keeps being repeated. It isn’t true. Whatsapp was on and off charging iPhone users $1 one time vs being free. Android users got the first year free then a small fraction paid $1 once or $1/year. Most probably estimates are that 5% of Android users ever paid. While a bigger possibly majority fraction paid $1 for the iPhone app. It wasn’t sustainable.

zpeti 6y ago

This is basically why Facebook doesn't offer a free option either, they make hardly anything from third world countries per user, but prob $50+ per year from USA users. So - third world countries can't pay a subscription, and for USA its just not worth it because hardly anyone would pay $50+ a year to use Facebook. Catch 22.

thatguy0900 6y ago

How much money does whatsapp actually get from people in those countries? I was under the impression that ad revenue from third world users was very low. How much would it be to charge them the same amount they would get from ads?

ignoramous 6y ago

> However, that route is not so easy. People in Latin American countries can't really afford to pay for apps. AdGuard and Cloudflare (at least for Warp+) adjust their monthly and annual subscription rates based on location. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index

iso8859-1 6y ago
This incentivizes inequality. I live in Mexico, earning 10x more than most, yet I could pay less.
- rchaud 6y ago
  It also improves affordability for those that don't make 10x the national average.
- skinnymuch 6y ago
  Yeah. Similarly, people pay for many services, Apple, Netflix, these, by switching locations. It isn’t exactly fair either for people on the poverty line in the US to pay the US prices when other places don’t have to.

Aachen 6y ago

> less than 2 USD [per month] How about 2USD/year? WhatsApp ran on 1 until Facebook bought it. I did the math at the time: with the users per server and separate user stats they were publishing, each employee could be paid very, very generously. Don't quote me on it but I think it was something like half or a quarter million per year. Yes, they were small and growing, as you grow you get more overhead as you try new things like eg. business customers or whatever, so maybe it can't be 1/year anymore (also because a decade of inflation happened in the meantime), but you can get very close to that or choose to operate in low and middle income countries at break-even or a small loss. I wouldn't find that unfair (as someone who earns in the top 1% of worldwide incomes, household income like 150k/year -- yes I'm looking into how to put that boatload to good use -- and who would be paying the compensatory high price).

skinnymuch 6y ago
This trope keeps being repeated. It isn’t true. Whatsapp was on and off charging iPhone users $1 one time vs being free. Android users got the first year free then a small fraction paid $1 once or $1/year. Most probably estimates are that 5% of Android users ever paid. While a bigger possibly majority fraction paid $1 for the iPhone app. It wasn’t sustainable.