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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 suff
by frombody 5y 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 5y agoYou think whatsapp service isn’t worth $1 per year? I was perfectly happy to pay that.
- pentae 5y agoJust because you're happy to pay it doesn't mean 500 million people are all happy to pay it
- frombody 5y agoOf 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.