21 ms·

WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

481 points by elorant 6y ago

jonplackett 6y ago
Why is it so hard for someone to make a simple WhatsApp competitor with the same business model as the pre-facebook WhatsApp? It was build by just a few people 10 freakin years ago. I wish people valued their privacy higher than $1 a year but I guess many don't.
- goldcd 6y ago
  That was Signal - he took the Facebook money and made Signal with it.
  - mmmmmbop 6y ago
    And now he's selling his reputation using an ICO scam.
- paxys 6y ago
  WhatsApp never had a real business model. Its peak revenue, disclosed by Facebook at the time of acquisition, was ~$1.5 million/year, and this was when they had 500 million active users. It was always running on VC cash.
  - mwambua 6y ago
    > Its peak revenue, disclosed by Facebook at the time of acquisition, was ~$1.5 million/year Not sure where you got that number, but in 2013 (before aquisition) they reported ~$10 million in revenue. (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680114000047/exhibit991auditedwhatsappi.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680114...) They brought in $15 million in the first half of 2014. (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680114000047/exhibit992unauditedwhatsap.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680114...) They only had 55 employees at acquisition. They might not have become a unicorn... but there most definitely was a path to profitability.
    - paxys 6y ago
      This was my source - https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/040915/how-whatsapp-makes-money.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/04091... (which points to that same document but somehow draws a different conclusion). Also that document shows a net loss of $230 million in that same period, so not exactly on a strong path to profitability.
      - jonplackett 6y ago
        does show though that if they could get all 500 million to pay just that $1 a year, they've got $270 million profit.
        paxys 6y ago
        - 30% goes straight to Apple/Google. - A large chunk of the world (especially people in developing countries) will be unwilling to pay anything more than $0. - Even if they want to pay, most of those users won't have a payment method set up. How many of their 2 billion+ users have a credit card or even a bank account?
      - mwambua 6y ago
        Thanks! Looks like they link Facebook's 10Q filing. Can't tell how they arrived at the number though. I agree that their losses were surprisingly high at the time... especially given how lean their engineering team and operations were supposed to be. (https://blog.whatsapp.com/1-million-is-so-2011/?lang=en https://blog.whatsapp.com/1-million-is-so-2011/?lang=en)
  - frombody 6y ago
    They attempted to force people to pay $1/yr. but that backfired hard because they couldn't figure out how to do the rollout, offered nothing in return, and suffered the backlash of their mismanagement. Even just giving paid users some small extra features or a little icon by their name or something small would have been enough to get people willingly give a dollar rather than their approach of trying to charge people.
    - Aeolun 6y ago
      You think whatsapp service isn’t worth $1 per year? I was perfectly happy to pay that.
      - pentae 6y ago
        Just because you're happy to pay it doesn't mean 500 million people are all happy to pay it
      - frombody 6y ago
        Of course it was worth a dollar before it went to facebook, the problem was they didn't plan how they were going to charge people. They only charged some users, not everyone, because they couldn't figure out how to do it.. and who got charged was relatively random. Those that did get charged could just complain and the subscription fee would just go away. Value is one thing, but only charging a fraction of your customer base at what seemingly felt like random was never going to gain public acceptance. I don't even think they even had a plan for how to deal with poorer nations in Africa where the app is exremely popular.
- lixtra 6y ago
  There is also threema. https://threema.ch/en/ https://threema.ch/en/
  - Pamar 6y ago
    Yes, a niche of a niche, but it exists. What about Keybase, though? This thread reminded me of its existence and I just renewed it on my iPhone...
- dalbasal 6y ago
  >> a simple WhatsApp competitor with the same business model as the pre-facebook WhatsApp. Because the business was "sell to fb," effectively. Whoever succeeds in putting together a wide network of people will face similar incentives. I suppose someone could do it Craig Newmark style, but for that a Craig Newmark needs to be CEO of a major app company. Long odds.
  - paxys 6y ago
    Not a great example even otherwise considering what a cesspool Craigslist eventually became.
  - busymom0 6y ago
    Was that the business model before FB offered them the deal though? If I remember right, before then, they has a $1 per year subscription?
- betwixthewires 6y ago
  All centralized communications and social networking platforms will fall to pressure to sell at this point, if that wasn't their intention (this seems to be the exit strategy of most startups these days). The alternatives exist, but they don't have marketing budgets. They're things like jabber, matrix, Jami, and the many ActivityPub implementations out there. We have the alternatives already. We can use them now. To me this defeatism is like jumping out of a plane with a parachute and saying "I guess there's nothing to be done now." It starts with you making the decision to use something else. It is harder because of the lock in. But there's only one way to do it.
  - jonplackett 6y ago
    It's not me using it, it's all my friends and family that's the challenge. Whatsapp isn't just marketing, it was better than everything else by being super easy to use, required no sign up, looked just like text messaging so my parents liked it too. They did everything right (up until they sold it!).
    - f1refly 6y ago
      Well, what makes you think that some new company would get any users then? Whatsapp requires sign in by the way. They take your phone number for that reason.
- soziawa 6y ago
  Because pre-facebook WhatsApp wasn't that great. It was frequently down and didn't even use TLS. However Threema exists. It is paid up front and otherwise fairly boring: https://threema.ch/en https://threema.ch/en
- Xplune13 6y ago
  > It was build by just a few people 10 freakin years ago. I think this here is the key point, that it was built 10 years ago when smartphones were just catching up and general public needed one working and stable chatting app. Replicating that is not the issue here but making people switch from their "used-to" app is. Not saying that is right or wrong but I get where most of the people are coming from. These apps are now intertwined with normal lives who are either unaware or don't care about their privacy. Also making that switching harder by incorporating more popular apps together like facebook-instagram, facebook-whatsapp doesn't help either.
- joking 6y ago
  I actually paid for using whatsapp, but too many people prefer something free even if you are paying with your privacy. The thing is that a communication app has to be used by both parties on the conversation, and that's a huge entry barrier.
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  WhatsApp had far smaller competition that nowadays. Bar of what is acceptable was raised. Windows 3.1 was extremely impressive when released and got popular. Releasing equivalent of Windows 3.1 in 2021 will not be impressive or popular.
foolinaround 6y ago
In Jan, there was a big outcry, i thought all would move to signal. I have about 25% of the conversations in signal, but especially for groups, whatsapp is so sticky, that they seem to have broadly failed in signal, and are back to whatsapp. I continue to have individual conversations on signal with most friends, but the idea of being able to leave whatsapp seems to be much tougher than I thought.
- darig 6y ago
  You're the glue creating the stickiness. Leave. Either they follow you, or they don't value you or themselves.
- bla3 6y ago
  If we're doing anecdata: All my contacts are on Signal now. I uninstalled WhatsApp back in Jan.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  And Signal saw that movement, and decided instead of focusing all their development effort in making sure the user experience for all these new users was top notch and developing in the open, instead to push a cryptocoin that no one has heard of before but one which their principals likely have a stash of. Given Signal's behavior, I am not going to waste any friendship capital trying to convince my friends to switch to Signal.
  - hjek 6y ago
    WhatsApp have been focusing on payments lately[0] so it only makes sense for Signal to put efforts into that, too. [0]: https://blog.whatsapp.com/send-payments-in-india-with-whatsapp/?lang=en https://blog.whatsapp.com/send-payments-in-india-with-whatsa...
    - Aeolun 6y ago
      If it’s actual payments, yes. If it’s some weird fully owned cryptocoin, no.
2Gkashmiri 6y ago
As someone who has never held a WhatsApp account / Instagram, I do see the network effect that wants to pull me into the conversation but I have always resisted. Even before, I had telegram, there were like 3 contacts total. Then with the recent mass migration, I quit that as well because "people" joined. Now im a happy matrix camper. Didnt even bother with signal because meh mobile requirement and their dishonest Foss policy.
aflag 6y ago
I was really hoping these privacy concerns would dissuade people from using WhatsApp. But I have a hidden agenda: I hate their web app. I just want a chat software I can use from anywhere.
- chabad360 6y ago
  Heh, let's be honest, Signal's isn't better (and I mean the desktop app, cause they don't have a web app). It randomly corrupts the sqlite database forcing me to set it up all over again, it takes a significantly long time to even do the setup process, and can't even do sms at all.
  - arepublicadoceu 6y ago
    Don’t forget about the sync time if you left it closed for a long time. On my new laptop it's not so horrendous but on my old computer I just gave up using it there.
  - aflag 6y ago
    It allows you to connect from multiple devices simultaneously and you don’t need to have your mobile charged and connected. That’s second only to actually be able to send messages to me.
- MOUNOPANO 6y ago
  Telegram dude
  - St0n3d 6y ago
    Telegram is horrendously insecure, it’s equal to or probably even worse than Facebook Messenger. It should be avoided like the plague by anyone seeking strong privacy protection.
nopato 6y ago
To be honest I feel a bit disenfranchised. I’ve used all my energy to convert all my friends to signal when the WhatsApp privacy policy fiasco happened and now they’re saying it was a waste of time since they don’t want anything to do with bitcoins.. I can’t blame them as I also don’t want this on my messaging app. I feel like I will just give up and use WhatsApp and assume that I only had privacy pre-internet.
- purplecats 6y ago
  > I feel like I will just give up and use WhatsApp and assume that I only had privacy pre-internet. Yup, this is it. The point they've been waiting for us to cross. It was inevitable imo to not give up and surrender to it. It feels like we as a society are slowing transcending from the 4th to the 5th stage of grief.
  - goldenchrome 6y ago
    I don’t think non-nerds really think about privacy online all that much. This privacy catastrophe is only felt in places like HN.
    - godelski 6y ago
      I talk to my friends, parents, and family about it a lot. They don't understand it, but they do care. Problem is that they don't understand how to fight back. They do not want to give up on Facebook. They also are afraid to switch to a service like Signal because "no one is there." So I think they care, but there's a big sense of helplessness. Honestly that's why I like projects like Signal. There's no way I can get people to use PGP through emails, it is too much work. But anyone can use something like Signal.
      - themacguffinman 6y ago
        A distinction without a difference. It matters little how much they say they care if the few taps to download a new app and some nonsense "but what if my friends list isn't totally full, the horror!" fear is what's stopping them, especially when they clearly know someone who can and is willing to help them (ie. you). I wonder how quickly they would switch if WhatsApp started requiring a monthly fee to use it. I get the feeling that big sense of helplessness would suddenly vanish. If they claim to care so much about online data privacy, let them prove it. They've already proven they care a lot about price.
saddlerustle 6y ago
Bizarre story given the new privacy policy in the EU changed nothing wrt what data is shared with Facebook.
- seanieb 6y ago
  Citation needed.
- hiq 6y ago
  Last I checked it was a lot of words for no change at all. If the change is so small, they could have allowed EU users to opt out (and maybe miss out on some features), they would have avoided the outcry.
  - saddlerustle 6y ago
    The point of the change is to enable business messaging, which is necessary for WhatsApp to generate any real revenue.
    - hiq 6y ago
      That's what I heard indeed, but that's still too many words if I don't want to receive messages from businesses anyway. They could have prompted users before the first interaction with a business for instance. Then users would have clearly linked the two.
saurik 6y ago
That big privacy policy update everyone was complaining about was--again--only about providing hosted e2e clients in the cloud for Facebook Business customers, and had nothing to do with end user to end user chats: the goal was to solve the experience problem of a company wanting to provide a chatbot and realizing "omg, I have to host all of the chat client parts myself and build some way for random people in my organization to get access to it?!". The updates were all clearly narrowly targeted towards that--including to the security document, which merely moved the statement that data was encrypted (as opposed to removing it, which some people claimed)--and Facebook representatives immediately provided explicit clarification of all of this, but no one cared and everyone caused this massive denigration of WhatsApp... one that is apparently continuing, as this doesn't seem to be anything new they changed? Here is a comment with some defense of all of this, for those who were only reading the big headlines: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25875802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25875802 And for what: so that the only mass-market end-to-end encrypted messaging tool could be discredited? And we could prove to large companies "we don't care if you are end-to-end encrypted: in fact, we will punish you harder if you are end-to-end encrypted than if you are just a normal service!"?!? Where is all the continued outrage over Snapchat, the service we actually should be trying to replace with an e2e encrypted alternative (but for which Signal is an insufficient replacement as a big reason people like Snapchat is that you don't have to give your real phone number to the random people you talk to online)? While some people remind us that Telegram sucks, where are the weekly threads and news articles about how horrible Telegram is? Why are groups like Signal targeting advertising at WhatsApp instead of at Telegram? Hell: why is everyone so upset over WhatsApp, but no one ever mentions Facebook Messenger in any of these articles or rants? And let us not forget the cherry on top of this whole thing: that right after everyone decided to do this massive mobilization to cause the great exodus from WhatsApp--only some of those people of course ending up on Signal, with some reasonable number likely moving to Snapchat or Telegram or even Facebook Messenger--Signal decided they had a great moment to launch MobileCoin... a cryptocurrency whose claim to fame is being built on broken-by-design DRM technology (Intel SGX / ARM TrustZone) and which--whether you think cryptocurrency is a good idea (which I do) or not--has managed to undermine confidence not only in the only big open source end-to-end encrypted messenger (by both clouding its motives and tying it to cryptocurrencies, which many end users consider to be a scam) but which has now soured everyone's opinion (maybe correctly) of the privacy community (due to the recent push to use it). This is all just so infuriating as someone who wants people to universally have end-to-end encryption :/. (FWIW, if there is something new here--something that Facebook is now suddenly doing that is actually bad, unlike before--I'm very curious, but am going to note that all of the above is now the reason why I'm even past the point of caring enough than to skim a few paragraphs to verify "this is part of the same FUD from a couple months ago": you can only cry wolf so many times before even the super technical people like me are no long going to care. But this just seems to now be "great, government is now going to step in and also punish WhatsApp for having the gall to have bothered to build an end-to-end encrypted messaging app and then be carefully transparent about the process by which they add a new feature that just shouldn't be considered a big problem". When this same politician decides to sanction Snapchat or Telegram for the way they handle privacy--or goes after Facebook Messenger or Instagram--I'll be excited, but this is going to harm the efforts for end-to-end encryption, not help them!)
nzgrover 6y ago
Why is Wire never mentioned in these discussions on HN, is there something I'm missing? Seems like the most secure option to me: https://wire.com/en/security/ https://wire.com/en/security/
- dvcrn 6y ago
  People don't use the most secure option, but the option that other people they want to be in contact with use. I've never heard of wire, so I doubt any of my friends or family have either
- slickdork 6y ago
  I've never heard of wire but it looks good, aside from the pricing. I'm hoping the future is a migration to a protocol such as Matrix, rather than users endlessly hoping from one product to another until they get sold out. https://matrix.org/ https://matrix.org/
  - theelous3 6y ago
    My friends and I did just that. I run us a federated self host. It's great. They aren't tech savvy - and no complaints.
    - slickdork 6y ago
      I'm glad to hear the migration worked. I tried doing this but got stuck at the reverse proxy part, so my synapse instance was never accessible. It was likely user error, as it was my first attempt at using a reverse proxy. I'm going to move away from PFSense and try again.
- 29083011397778 6y ago
  I use Wire with some family members. The web client takes an age to load, and the best way to describe the UX of their mobile (Android) client is "Like wading through molasses". Swiping or hitting the back key to leave a chat, entering a chat from the group/contact list, and tapping on a notification to reply in-app is absolutely painful. Some inspired soul will say "Great! That's a golden opportunity for a Matrix bridge!" And it would be, if that wasn't explicitly against Wire's ToS. As such, it's the absolute dog of an app, or nothing. iOS must be better though, as nobody else has suggested switching. And between poor performance on Wire, or all the drawbacks of Whatsapp, I know which one I choose.
crossroadsguy 6y ago
Reminds me of Firefox and Pocket. It’s been years since that. Somehow I still can’t use Firefox the way it was - my only browser. I try once in a while and somehow or the other it doesn’t feel right anymore. Signal has done it repeatedly as well (no federation etc) but I’ve always ignored it and let it slide but for f’s sake this thing is not even open source really!
Reason077 6y ago
Just delete Facebook. They can’t aggregate data between WhatsApp and Facebook if there is no Facebook data to aggregate!
- pmlnr 6y ago
  I haven't heard of shadow profiles, have you?
deevolution 6y ago
If the service is free, you are the product. Why expect any level of privacy from a free to use app? Bonkers.
spicyramen 6y ago
My personal experience is that I moved some friends to Telegram and kept family in WhatsApp.The time using the phone decreased, I found having 2 messengers more beneficial as I will switch only when there is some relevant conversation or topic happening.
- seanieb 6y ago
  Telegram is LESS secure than WhatsApp. https://www.wired.com/story/telegram-encryption-whatsapp-settings/ https://www.wired.com/story/telegram-encryption-whatsapp-set...
  - fsflover 6y ago
    Only if you trust Facebook to implement E2E encryption well in their proprietary code.
    - seanieb 6y ago
      I’ll take that risk over no default e2ee on Telegram any day.
      - samoa42 6y ago
        that sounds a bit like you'd prefer a certificate guaranteing that you will never die over one that pays when you do.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - hiq 6y ago
      > I'm sorry, but that's not how computer software works. Anyone who knows what a basic block is can straightforwardly verify the claims WhatsApp is making. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11432096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11432096
      - 6y ago
inputmice 6y ago
Quicksy.im / Conversations.im developer here. I promise I’ll never implement crypto currency into my messenger apps.¹ Even if I break my promise you could just use a fork of my app since XMPP servers don’t prevent third party clients from connecting. ¹: I don’t have to either because I have a working business model that’s not a ponzi scheme
- antihero 6y ago
  Is there a way to sign up to it which is as simple for tech-illiterate people as WhatsApp/Signal? I recall the last few times I, a developer, have tried to functionally use any sort of XMPP based thing it has been a confusing and inconsistent experience.
  - f1refly 6y ago
    That's exactly what quicksy.im is for, it's a build flavor of conversations that uses the users phone number as jabber id with auto discovery
    - antihero 6y ago
      Can't see an App Store link :(
      - f1refly 6y ago
        Here it is: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.quicksy.client https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.quicksy.cli...
- joelthelion 6y ago
  What's your business model?
newbie578 6y ago
How can it be illegal? It is their platform, their own rules, right? If you don't like it, then just don't use it. There are other platforms which are more than good enough. /s if not obv, I'm making fun of people defending the App Store, yet when FB is in question are blatantly showing their hypocrisy.
- pmlnr 6y ago
  No, that is not that simple. There are laws around what and how can be shared between companies.
teekert 6y ago
Android Police's cookie notice is so bad, it might be illegal.
jnxx 6y ago
> WhatsApp has been facing one hell of a backlash ever since it shared that it wanted to update its privacy policy with changes that would allow Facebook to aggregate all of its users' data across all of its services. I think this is bad. But also a general tendency: Accumulations of data are valuable to companies which exploit them. Larger accumulations of data are even more valuable, in a non-linear way. This is because data sets are multi-dimensional, and the more dimensions you have, the more information you can get out of it, even if the users initially have never thought about that. So, if you have two large accumulations of data, and you join them, you get extra value. Google is doing this aggregation as well, as mentioned in its terms of service. You also see that in they way Microsoft is trying to link business and personal accounts via Lynx and so on. You also see that with platforms like LinkedIn (which was bought by Microsoft). In other words, it works a bit like gravity. Mass attracts other masses and more mass attracts even more mass. And what we will end up is a kind of black hole in which everything is collapsing into the same place. Without effective regulation, one day, Facebook's data and Google's data will probably be combined. BTW I am also skeptic whether some of the reported "data leaks" are not in reality covered-up data sales. As long as there are no substantial consequences, like criminal sentences, to people who do that, there are very few barriers to exploiting personal data in this way.
- beforeolives 6y ago
  > Without effective regulation, one day, Facebook's data and Google's data will probably be combined. Can you elaborate on why you think this might happen? It doesn't seem like an obvious outcome to me.
  - jnxx 6y ago
    Because you can squeeze out more money from it that way. Having everything collapsed in one giant data collection is just the natural equilibrium state from the physics point of view.
walterbell 6y ago
There are three pre-requisites to escaping the messenger silo treadmill: 1. multi-vendor, open standard protocol for E2EE group messaging 2. reference open-source clients for web, desktop & mobile 3. reference open-source server Wire is contributing to #1 and they have a high-quality iOS (OSS) client and OSS server. Their Android and web clients are less stellar, but exist and can be improved. The iOS Arm client will likely be enabled on M1 Macs. Wire is free for individual consumers and has a paid offering for enterprise teams (i.e. their business model is neither data nor charity), and they do not mandate sharing your phone number or address book -- only an email address is required. The IETF standard is MLS and it will live alongside TLS, https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/mls/about/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/mls/about/. The team behind Wire founded Skype and contributed to the first patent-free high-def audio codec (OPUS), which in turn enabled WebRTC, the protocol behind most modern video conferencing services. Matrix.org provides #2 and #3 and has stated that they will migrate to the IETF MLS standard protocol. Since both Wire and Matrix offer both OSS clients & servers, and there is active multi-vendor development on an open standard protocol for E2EE group messaging, web & mobile developers have multiple options for open-source contribution. Matrix already supports federated servers that can be self-hosted, and they recently supported the FOSDEM online conference with ~30,000 attendees, https://matrix.org/blog/2021/02/15/how-we-hosted-fosdem-2021-on-matrix https://matrix.org/blog/2021/02/15/how-we-hosted-fosdem-2021... > The most unique thing about Matrix is that conversations get replicated across all servers whose users are present in the conversation, so there's never a single point of control or failure for a conversation (much as git repositories get replicated between all contributors). And so hosting FOSDEM in Matrix meant that everyone already on Matrix (including users bridged to Matrix from IRC, XMPP, Slack, Discord etc) could attend directly - in addition to users signing up for the first time on the FOSDEM server.
- bruckie 6y ago
  4. Economic incentives for the current entrenched players to participate, or for everyone to abandon the entrenched players for new open ones. That's by far the hardest part, and I'm skeptical it will happen anytime soon. I suspect things will shift eventually as the market changes (e.g. the shift from desktop to mobile), but I doubt it will be toward openness absent government regulation the forces it.
intrasight 6y ago
Honest question. What do Signal and WhatsApp bring to the table that I'm not getting with the messaging apps built into my phones? Me and all my friends and family just use those, and nobody has ever asked me to communicate with Signal or WhatsApp.
- dtx1 6y ago
  Do you mean Apps on your phone relying on SMS?
  - intrasight 6y ago
    I mean the native apps whatever they are. I've an iPhone and an Android phone, and they both message just fine.
    - dtx1 6y ago
      Do they encrypt the data end-to-end? Are they private and privacy friendly? If the answer is no, then they don't message 'just fine' but are an obvious liablity.
      - intrasight 6y ago
        I'll have to research RCS some more, but it seems that it is. https://www.pocket-lint.com/phones/news/144258-what-is-rcs-messaging-the-messaging-format-set-to-take-over-your-android-phone https://www.pocket-lint.com/phones/news/144258-what-is-rcs-m...
- kua60 6y ago
  I think whatsapp and signal gained real momentum in countries where sending too many text messages was super expensive than having a cheap internet pack and send unlimited messages using whatsapp or signal
- kevincox 6y ago
  My messaging apps built into your phone do you mean SMS? Or iMessage or RCS? Because SMS leaves a lot on the table. It is okay if you want to send just text but doesn't support rich features such as reactions, replies various forms of formatting or media. It is also very insecure. iMessage and RCS provide more but have their own limitations particularly across platforms. Furthermore other messaging apps provide a wide variety of features and aren't tied to (often temporary) identifiers such as phone numbers. So SMS may be sufficient for many people but I'm surprised that you haven't encountered people using other communications tools that are much more full featured.

481 points by elorant 6y ago

Why is it so hard for someone to make a simple WhatsApp competitor with the same business model as the pre-facebook WhatsApp? It was build by just a few people 10 freakin years ago. I wish people valued their privacy higher than $1 a year but I guess many don't.

goldcd 6y ago
That was Signal - he took the Facebook money and made Signal with it.
- mmmmmbop 6y ago
  And now he's selling his reputation using an ICO scam.
paxys 6y ago
WhatsApp never had a real business model. Its peak revenue, disclosed by Facebook at the time of acquisition, was ~$1.5 million/year, and this was when they had 500 million active users. It was always running on VC cash.
- mwambua 6y ago
  > Its peak revenue, disclosed by Facebook at the time of acquisition, was ~$1.5 million/year Not sure where you got that number, but in 2013 (before aquisition) they reported ~$10 million in revenue. (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680114000047/exhibit991auditedwhatsappi.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680114...) They brought in $15 million in the first half of 2014. (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680114000047/exhibit992unauditedwhatsap.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680114...) They only had 55 employees at acquisition. They might not have become a unicorn... but there most definitely was a path to profitability.
  - paxys 6y ago
    This was my source - https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/040915/how-whatsapp-makes-money.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/04091... (which points to that same document but somehow draws a different conclusion). Also that document shows a net loss of $230 million in that same period, so not exactly on a strong path to profitability.
    - jonplackett 6y ago
      does show though that if they could get all 500 million to pay just that $1 a year, they've got $270 million profit.
      - paxys 6y ago
        - 30% goes straight to Apple/Google. - A large chunk of the world (especially people in developing countries) will be unwilling to pay anything more than $0. - Even if they want to pay, most of those users won't have a payment method set up. How many of their 2 billion+ users have a credit card or even a bank account?
    - mwambua 6y ago
      Thanks! Looks like they link Facebook's 10Q filing. Can't tell how they arrived at the number though. I agree that their losses were surprisingly high at the time... especially given how lean their engineering team and operations were supposed to be. (https://blog.whatsapp.com/1-million-is-so-2011/?lang=en https://blog.whatsapp.com/1-million-is-so-2011/?lang=en)
- frombody 6y ago
  They attempted to force people to pay $1/yr. but that backfired hard because they couldn't figure out how to do the rollout, offered nothing in return, and suffered the backlash of their mismanagement. Even just giving paid users some small extra features or a little icon by their name or something small would have been enough to get people willingly give a dollar rather than their approach of trying to charge people.
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    You think whatsapp service isn’t worth $1 per year? I was perfectly happy to pay that.
    - pentae 6y ago
      Just because you're happy to pay it doesn't mean 500 million people are all happy to pay it
    - frombody 6y ago
      Of course it was worth a dollar before it went to facebook, the problem was they didn't plan how they were going to charge people. They only charged some users, not everyone, because they couldn't figure out how to do it.. and who got charged was relatively random. Those that did get charged could just complain and the subscription fee would just go away. Value is one thing, but only charging a fraction of your customer base at what seemingly felt like random was never going to gain public acceptance. I don't even think they even had a plan for how to deal with poorer nations in Africa where the app is exremely popular.
lixtra 6y ago
There is also threema. https://threema.ch/en/ https://threema.ch/en/
- Pamar 6y ago
  Yes, a niche of a niche, but it exists. What about Keybase, though? This thread reminded me of its existence and I just renewed it on my iPhone...
dalbasal 6y ago
>> a simple WhatsApp competitor with the same business model as the pre-facebook WhatsApp. Because the business was "sell to fb," effectively. Whoever succeeds in putting together a wide network of people will face similar incentives. I suppose someone could do it Craig Newmark style, but for that a Craig Newmark needs to be CEO of a major app company. Long odds.
- paxys 6y ago
  Not a great example even otherwise considering what a cesspool Craigslist eventually became.
- busymom0 6y ago
  Was that the business model before FB offered them the deal though? If I remember right, before then, they has a $1 per year subscription?
betwixthewires 6y ago
All centralized communications and social networking platforms will fall to pressure to sell at this point, if that wasn't their intention (this seems to be the exit strategy of most startups these days). The alternatives exist, but they don't have marketing budgets. They're things like jabber, matrix, Jami, and the many ActivityPub implementations out there. We have the alternatives already. We can use them now. To me this defeatism is like jumping out of a plane with a parachute and saying "I guess there's nothing to be done now." It starts with you making the decision to use something else. It is harder because of the lock in. But there's only one way to do it.
- jonplackett 6y ago
  It's not me using it, it's all my friends and family that's the challenge. Whatsapp isn't just marketing, it was better than everything else by being super easy to use, required no sign up, looked just like text messaging so my parents liked it too. They did everything right (up until they sold it!).
  - f1refly 6y ago
    Well, what makes you think that some new company would get any users then? Whatsapp requires sign in by the way. They take your phone number for that reason.
soziawa 6y ago
Because pre-facebook WhatsApp wasn't that great. It was frequently down and didn't even use TLS. However Threema exists. It is paid up front and otherwise fairly boring: https://threema.ch/en https://threema.ch/en
Xplune13 6y ago
> It was build by just a few people 10 freakin years ago. I think this here is the key point, that it was built 10 years ago when smartphones were just catching up and general public needed one working and stable chatting app. Replicating that is not the issue here but making people switch from their "used-to" app is. Not saying that is right or wrong but I get where most of the people are coming from. These apps are now intertwined with normal lives who are either unaware or don't care about their privacy. Also making that switching harder by incorporating more popular apps together like facebook-instagram, facebook-whatsapp doesn't help either.
joking 6y ago
I actually paid for using whatsapp, but too many people prefer something free even if you are paying with your privacy. The thing is that a communication app has to be used by both parties on the conversation, and that's a huge entry barrier.
matkoniecz 6y ago
WhatsApp had far smaller competition that nowadays. Bar of what is acceptable was raised. Windows 3.1 was extremely impressive when released and got popular. Releasing equivalent of Windows 3.1 in 2021 will not be impressive or popular.

foolinaround 6y ago

In Jan, there was a big outcry, i thought all would move to signal. I have about 25% of the conversations in signal, but especially for groups, whatsapp is so sticky, that they seem to have broadly failed in signal, and are back to whatsapp. I continue to have individual conversations on signal with most friends, but the idea of being able to leave whatsapp seems to be much tougher than I thought.

darig 6y ago
You're the glue creating the stickiness. Leave. Either they follow you, or they don't value you or themselves.
bla3 6y ago
If we're doing anecdata: All my contacts are on Signal now. I uninstalled WhatsApp back in Jan.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
And Signal saw that movement, and decided instead of focusing all their development effort in making sure the user experience for all these new users was top notch and developing in the open, instead to push a cryptocoin that no one has heard of before but one which their principals likely have a stash of. Given Signal's behavior, I am not going to waste any friendship capital trying to convince my friends to switch to Signal.
- hjek 6y ago
  WhatsApp have been focusing on payments lately[0] so it only makes sense for Signal to put efforts into that, too. [0]: https://blog.whatsapp.com/send-payments-in-india-with-whatsapp/?lang=en https://blog.whatsapp.com/send-payments-in-india-with-whatsa...
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    If it’s actual payments, yes. If it’s some weird fully owned cryptocoin, no.

2Gkashmiri 6y ago

As someone who has never held a WhatsApp account / Instagram, I do see the network effect that wants to pull me into the conversation but I have always resisted. Even before, I had telegram, there were like 3 contacts total. Then with the recent mass migration, I quit that as well because "people" joined. Now im a happy matrix camper. Didnt even bother with signal because meh mobile requirement and their dishonest Foss policy.

aflag 6y ago

I was really hoping these privacy concerns would dissuade people from using WhatsApp. But I have a hidden agenda: I hate their web app. I just want a chat software I can use from anywhere.

chabad360 6y ago
Heh, let's be honest, Signal's isn't better (and I mean the desktop app, cause they don't have a web app). It randomly corrupts the sqlite database forcing me to set it up all over again, it takes a significantly long time to even do the setup process, and can't even do sms at all.
- arepublicadoceu 6y ago
  Don’t forget about the sync time if you left it closed for a long time. On my new laptop it's not so horrendous but on my old computer I just gave up using it there.
- aflag 6y ago
  It allows you to connect from multiple devices simultaneously and you don’t need to have your mobile charged and connected. That’s second only to actually be able to send messages to me.
MOUNOPANO 6y ago
Telegram dude
- St0n3d 6y ago
  Telegram is horrendously insecure, it’s equal to or probably even worse than Facebook Messenger. It should be avoided like the plague by anyone seeking strong privacy protection.

nopato 6y ago

To be honest I feel a bit disenfranchised. I’ve used all my energy to convert all my friends to signal when the WhatsApp privacy policy fiasco happened and now they’re saying it was a waste of time since they don’t want anything to do with bitcoins.. I can’t blame them as I also don’t want this on my messaging app. I feel like I will just give up and use WhatsApp and assume that I only had privacy pre-internet.

purplecats 6y ago
> I feel like I will just give up and use WhatsApp and assume that I only had privacy pre-internet. Yup, this is it. The point they've been waiting for us to cross. It was inevitable imo to not give up and surrender to it. It feels like we as a society are slowing transcending from the 4th to the 5th stage of grief.
- goldenchrome 6y ago
  I don’t think non-nerds really think about privacy online all that much. This privacy catastrophe is only felt in places like HN.
  - godelski 6y ago
    I talk to my friends, parents, and family about it a lot. They don't understand it, but they do care. Problem is that they don't understand how to fight back. They do not want to give up on Facebook. They also are afraid to switch to a service like Signal because "no one is there." So I think they care, but there's a big sense of helplessness. Honestly that's why I like projects like Signal. There's no way I can get people to use PGP through emails, it is too much work. But anyone can use something like Signal.
    - themacguffinman 6y ago
      A distinction without a difference. It matters little how much they say they care if the few taps to download a new app and some nonsense "but what if my friends list isn't totally full, the horror!" fear is what's stopping them, especially when they clearly know someone who can and is willing to help them (ie. you). I wonder how quickly they would switch if WhatsApp started requiring a monthly fee to use it. I get the feeling that big sense of helplessness would suddenly vanish. If they claim to care so much about online data privacy, let them prove it. They've already proven they care a lot about price.

saddlerustle 6y ago

Bizarre story given the new privacy policy in the EU changed nothing wrt what data is shared with Facebook.

seanieb 6y ago
Citation needed.
hiq 6y ago
Last I checked it was a lot of words for no change at all. If the change is so small, they could have allowed EU users to opt out (and maybe miss out on some features), they would have avoided the outcry.
- saddlerustle 6y ago
  The point of the change is to enable business messaging, which is necessary for WhatsApp to generate any real revenue.
  - hiq 6y ago
    That's what I heard indeed, but that's still too many words if I don't want to receive messages from businesses anyway. They could have prompted users before the first interaction with a business for instance. Then users would have clearly linked the two.

saurik 6y ago

That big privacy policy update everyone was complaining about was--again--only about providing hosted e2e clients in the cloud for Facebook Business customers, and had nothing to do with end user to end user chats: the goal was to solve the experience problem of a company wanting to provide a chatbot and realizing "omg, I have to host all of the chat client parts myself and build some way for random people in my organization to get access to it?!". The updates were all clearly narrowly targeted towards that--including to the security document, which merely moved the statement that data was encrypted (as opposed to removing it, which some people claimed)--and Facebook representatives immediately provided explicit clarification of all of this, but no one cared and everyone caused this massive denigration of WhatsApp... one that is apparently continuing, as this doesn't seem to be anything new they changed? Here is a comment with some defense of all of this, for those who were only reading the big headlines: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25875802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25875802 And for what: so that the only mass-market end-to-end encrypted messaging tool could be discredited? And we could prove to large companies "we don't care if you are end-to-end encrypted: in fact, we will punish you harder if you are end-to-end encrypted than if you are just a normal service!"?!? Where is all the continued outrage over Snapchat, the service we actually should be trying to replace with an e2e encrypted alternative (but for which Signal is an insufficient replacement as a big reason people like Snapchat is that you don't have to give your real phone number to the random people you talk to online)? While some people remind us that Telegram sucks, where are the weekly threads and news articles about how horrible Telegram is? Why are groups like Signal targeting advertising at WhatsApp instead of at Telegram? Hell: why is everyone so upset over WhatsApp, but no one ever mentions Facebook Messenger in any of these articles or rants? And let us not forget the cherry on top of this whole thing: that right after everyone decided to do this massive mobilization to cause the great exodus from WhatsApp--only some of those people of course ending up on Signal, with some reasonable number likely moving to Snapchat or Telegram or even Facebook Messenger--Signal decided they had a great moment to launch MobileCoin... a cryptocurrency whose claim to fame is being built on broken-by-design DRM technology (Intel SGX / ARM TrustZone) and which--whether you think cryptocurrency is a good idea (which I do) or not--has managed to undermine confidence not only in the only big open source end-to-end encrypted messenger (by both clouding its motives and tying it to cryptocurrencies, which many end users consider to be a scam) but which has now soured everyone's opinion (maybe correctly) of the privacy community (due to the recent push to use it). This is all just so infuriating as someone who wants people to universally have end-to-end encryption :/. (FWIW, if there is something new here--something that Facebook is now suddenly doing that is actually bad, unlike before--I'm very curious, but am going to note that all of the above is now the reason why I'm even past the point of caring enough than to skim a few paragraphs to verify "this is part of the same FUD from a couple months ago": you can only cry wolf so many times before even the super technical people like me are no long going to care. But this just seems to now be "great, government is now going to step in and also punish WhatsApp for having the gall to have bothered to build an end-to-end encrypted messaging app and then be carefully transparent about the process by which they add a new feature that just shouldn't be considered a big problem". When this same politician decides to sanction Snapchat or Telegram for the way they handle privacy--or goes after Facebook Messenger or Instagram--I'll be excited, but this is going to harm the efforts for end-to-end encryption, not help them!)

nzgrover 6y ago

Why is Wire never mentioned in these discussions on HN, is there something I'm missing? Seems like the most secure option to me: https://wire.com/en/security/ https://wire.com/en/security/

dvcrn 6y ago
People don't use the most secure option, but the option that other people they want to be in contact with use. I've never heard of wire, so I doubt any of my friends or family have either
slickdork 6y ago
I've never heard of wire but it looks good, aside from the pricing. I'm hoping the future is a migration to a protocol such as Matrix, rather than users endlessly hoping from one product to another until they get sold out. https://matrix.org/ https://matrix.org/
- theelous3 6y ago
  My friends and I did just that. I run us a federated self host. It's great. They aren't tech savvy - and no complaints.
  - slickdork 6y ago
    I'm glad to hear the migration worked. I tried doing this but got stuck at the reverse proxy part, so my synapse instance was never accessible. It was likely user error, as it was my first attempt at using a reverse proxy. I'm going to move away from PFSense and try again.
29083011397778 6y ago
I use Wire with some family members. The web client takes an age to load, and the best way to describe the UX of their mobile (Android) client is "Like wading through molasses". Swiping or hitting the back key to leave a chat, entering a chat from the group/contact list, and tapping on a notification to reply in-app is absolutely painful. Some inspired soul will say "Great! That's a golden opportunity for a Matrix bridge!" And it would be, if that wasn't explicitly against Wire's ToS. As such, it's the absolute dog of an app, or nothing. iOS must be better though, as nobody else has suggested switching. And between poor performance on Wire, or all the drawbacks of Whatsapp, I know which one I choose.

crossroadsguy 6y ago

Reminds me of Firefox and Pocket. It’s been years since that. Somehow I still can’t use Firefox the way it was - my only browser. I try once in a while and somehow or the other it doesn’t feel right anymore. Signal has done it repeatedly as well (no federation etc) but I’ve always ignored it and let it slide but for f’s sake this thing is not even open source really!

Reason077 6y ago

Just delete Facebook. They can’t aggregate data between WhatsApp and Facebook if there is no Facebook data to aggregate!

pmlnr 6y ago
I haven't heard of shadow profiles, have you?

deevolution 6y ago

If the service is free, you are the product. Why expect any level of privacy from a free to use app? Bonkers.

spicyramen 6y ago

My personal experience is that I moved some friends to Telegram and kept family in WhatsApp.The time using the phone decreased, I found having 2 messengers more beneficial as I will switch only when there is some relevant conversation or topic happening.

seanieb 6y ago
Telegram is LESS secure than WhatsApp. https://www.wired.com/story/telegram-encryption-whatsapp-settings/ https://www.wired.com/story/telegram-encryption-whatsapp-set...
- fsflover 6y ago
  Only if you trust Facebook to implement E2E encryption well in their proprietary code.
  - seanieb 6y ago
    I’ll take that risk over no default e2ee on Telegram any day.
    - samoa42 6y ago
      that sounds a bit like you'd prefer a certificate guaranteing that you will never die over one that pays when you do.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - hiq 6y ago
    > I'm sorry, but that's not how computer software works. Anyone who knows what a basic block is can straightforwardly verify the claims WhatsApp is making. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11432096 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11432096
    - 6y ago

inputmice 6y ago

Quicksy.im / Conversations.im developer here. I promise I’ll never implement crypto currency into my messenger apps.¹ Even if I break my promise you could just use a fork of my app since XMPP servers don’t prevent third party clients from connecting. ¹: I don’t have to either because I have a working business model that’s not a ponzi scheme

antihero 6y ago
Is there a way to sign up to it which is as simple for tech-illiterate people as WhatsApp/Signal? I recall the last few times I, a developer, have tried to functionally use any sort of XMPP based thing it has been a confusing and inconsistent experience.
- f1refly 6y ago
  That's exactly what quicksy.im is for, it's a build flavor of conversations that uses the users phone number as jabber id with auto discovery
  - antihero 6y ago
    Can't see an App Store link :(
    - f1refly 6y ago
      Here it is: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.quicksy.client https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.quicksy.cli...
joelthelion 6y ago
What's your business model?

newbie578 6y ago

How can it be illegal? It is their platform, their own rules, right? If you don't like it, then just don't use it. There are other platforms which are more than good enough. /s if not obv, I'm making fun of people defending the App Store, yet when FB is in question are blatantly showing their hypocrisy.

pmlnr 6y ago
No, that is not that simple. There are laws around what and how can be shared between companies.

teekert 6y ago

Android Police's cookie notice is so bad, it might be illegal.

jnxx 6y ago

> WhatsApp has been facing one hell of a backlash ever since it shared that it wanted to update its privacy policy with changes that would allow Facebook to aggregate all of its users' data across all of its services. I think this is bad. But also a general tendency: Accumulations of data are valuable to companies which exploit them. Larger accumulations of data are even more valuable, in a non-linear way. This is because data sets are multi-dimensional, and the more dimensions you have, the more information you can get out of it, even if the users initially have never thought about that. So, if you have two large accumulations of data, and you join them, you get extra value. Google is doing this aggregation as well, as mentioned in its terms of service. You also see that in they way Microsoft is trying to link business and personal accounts via Lynx and so on. You also see that with platforms like LinkedIn (which was bought by Microsoft). In other words, it works a bit like gravity. Mass attracts other masses and more mass attracts even more mass. And what we will end up is a kind of black hole in which everything is collapsing into the same place. Without effective regulation, one day, Facebook's data and Google's data will probably be combined. BTW I am also skeptic whether some of the reported "data leaks" are not in reality covered-up data sales. As long as there are no substantial consequences, like criminal sentences, to people who do that, there are very few barriers to exploiting personal data in this way.

beforeolives 6y ago
> Without effective regulation, one day, Facebook's data and Google's data will probably be combined. Can you elaborate on why you think this might happen? It doesn't seem like an obvious outcome to me.
- jnxx 6y ago
  Because you can squeeze out more money from it that way. Having everything collapsed in one giant data collection is just the natural equilibrium state from the physics point of view.

walterbell 6y ago

There are three pre-requisites to escaping the messenger silo treadmill: 1. multi-vendor, open standard protocol for E2EE group messaging 2. reference open-source clients for web, desktop & mobile 3. reference open-source server Wire is contributing to #1 and they have a high-quality iOS (OSS) client and OSS server. Their Android and web clients are less stellar, but exist and can be improved. The iOS Arm client will likely be enabled on M1 Macs. Wire is free for individual consumers and has a paid offering for enterprise teams (i.e. their business model is neither data nor charity), and they do not mandate sharing your phone number or address book -- only an email address is required. The IETF standard is MLS and it will live alongside TLS, https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/mls/about/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/mls/about/. The team behind Wire founded Skype and contributed to the first patent-free high-def audio codec (OPUS), which in turn enabled WebRTC, the protocol behind most modern video conferencing services. Matrix.org provides #2 and #3 and has stated that they will migrate to the IETF MLS standard protocol. Since both Wire and Matrix offer both OSS clients & servers, and there is active multi-vendor development on an open standard protocol for E2EE group messaging, web & mobile developers have multiple options for open-source contribution. Matrix already supports federated servers that can be self-hosted, and they recently supported the FOSDEM online conference with ~30,000 attendees, https://matrix.org/blog/2021/02/15/how-we-hosted-fosdem-2021-on-matrix https://matrix.org/blog/2021/02/15/how-we-hosted-fosdem-2021... > The most unique thing about Matrix is that conversations get replicated across all servers whose users are present in the conversation, so there's never a single point of control or failure for a conversation (much as git repositories get replicated between all contributors). And so hosting FOSDEM in Matrix meant that everyone already on Matrix (including users bridged to Matrix from IRC, XMPP, Slack, Discord etc) could attend directly - in addition to users signing up for the first time on the FOSDEM server.

bruckie 6y ago
4. Economic incentives for the current entrenched players to participate, or for everyone to abandon the entrenched players for new open ones. That's by far the hardest part, and I'm skeptical it will happen anytime soon. I suspect things will shift eventually as the market changes (e.g. the shift from desktop to mobile), but I doubt it will be toward openness absent government regulation the forces it.

intrasight 6y ago

Honest question. What do Signal and WhatsApp bring to the table that I'm not getting with the messaging apps built into my phones? Me and all my friends and family just use those, and nobody has ever asked me to communicate with Signal or WhatsApp.

dtx1 6y ago
Do you mean Apps on your phone relying on SMS?
- intrasight 6y ago
  I mean the native apps whatever they are. I've an iPhone and an Android phone, and they both message just fine.
  - dtx1 6y ago
    Do they encrypt the data end-to-end? Are they private and privacy friendly? If the answer is no, then they don't message 'just fine' but are an obvious liablity.
    - intrasight 6y ago
      I'll have to research RCS some more, but it seems that it is. https://www.pocket-lint.com/phones/news/144258-what-is-rcs-messaging-the-messaging-format-set-to-take-over-your-android-phone https://www.pocket-lint.com/phones/news/144258-what-is-rcs-m...
kua60 6y ago
I think whatsapp and signal gained real momentum in countries where sending too many text messages was super expensive than having a cheap internet pack and send unlimited messages using whatsapp or signal
kevincox 6y ago
My messaging apps built into your phone do you mean SMS? Or iMessage or RCS? Because SMS leaves a lot on the table. It is okay if you want to send just text but doesn't support rich features such as reactions, replies various forms of formatting or media. It is also very insecure. iMessage and RCS provide more but have their own limitations particularly across platforms. Furthermore other messaging apps provide a wide variety of features and aren't tied to (often temporary) identifiers such as phone numbers. So SMS may be sufficient for many people but I'm surprised that you haven't encountered people using other communications tools that are much more full featured.