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> If they stop offering or reduce WhatsApp services in Germany (or India), that's a great indicator that the service isn't profitable without the sale (or other

> If they stop offering or reduce WhatsApp services in Germany (or India), that's a great indicator that the service isn't profitable without the sale (or other commercial exploitation, Facebook is an ad company after all) of large amounts of user data. Don't we already know that about WhatsApp though? What other revenue source does it have?

eqvinox 5y ago
Well, there's no other visible revenue source currently, but (a) we don't know what the ad/user data revenue looks like down to the finer details¹, and (b) theoretically they could have planned to turn it into a subscription service (pretty unlikely, but who knows…) ¹ some information could be gleaned from public filings, but the more interesting question is the relationship between amount of data extracted and revenue gained; any public filings only show the status quo.
- culturestate 5y ago
  > theoretically they could have planned to turn it into a subscription service (pretty unlikely, but who knows…) WhatsApp originally was a subscription service; when I first signed up, it cost $1 per year. They dropped the fee in 2016[1], and now Facebook is trying[2] to go back to the subscription model for business. 1. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/whatsapp-to-go-completely-free-and-drop-annual-subscription-price-a6818971.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne... 2. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/22/facebook-to-charge-for-whatsapp-business-services.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/22/facebook-to-charge-for-whats...
  - eqvinox 5y ago
    Oh, interesting, thanks, I didn't actually know that.
stefan_ 5y ago
Well it used to cost like $1 per year and that covered operating expenses many times over, yet..
- Ayesh 5y ago
  I wonder what is the true server cost of one user to the system. Of course, the initial costs and human costs are quite high, but in a running system, what could be the cost? They are E2E, so it is unlikely that the servers need to do any heavy processing. I see that I unused about 3GB of data for about a year, and with 3GB costing $0.30 even at AWS extortion prices, $1 seems like a good estimate.
- chii 5y ago
  which they waived very often. I had whatsapp when there was officially a $1 per year cost of subscription, but the first year was free - and then the next, and the next, the "fees" kept getting waived. Then facebook acquired them, and removed the mention of fees altogether.
- mrweasel 5y ago
  In that case they could easily adjust pricing to match each country and put a positive spin on it. Let people in Europe pay €5 a year, but tell them that they are finasing 5 users in Africa.
  - ulfw 5y ago
    Erm yea they still wouldn't pay for this as long as other free alternatives are available. Messengers are a commodity product in terms of functionality. If the captive audience walks elsewhere the messengers dies (see Yahoo Messenger, MSN, AOL, the 250 different ones Google had at some point or other...)
    - josefx 5y ago
      People paid for WhatsApp before Facebook bought it and it was successfull. That is a fact spyware peddlers and their fanboys can't argue away. > Messengers are a commodity product in terms of functionality. They also where when whats app was a paid service. Yet the complaint against signal, etc. is that they are unusable because they are not nearly as full featured, hard to use and that people would rather continue to use WhatsApp for the network effect alone.

eqvinox 5y ago

Well, there's no other visible revenue source currently, but (a) we don't know what the ad/user data revenue looks like down to the finer details¹, and (b) theoretically they could have planned to turn it into a subscription service (pretty unlikely, but who knows…) ¹ some information could be gleaned from public filings, but the more interesting question is the relationship between amount of data extracted and revenue gained; any public filings only show the status quo.

culturestate 5y ago
> theoretically they could have planned to turn it into a subscription service (pretty unlikely, but who knows…) WhatsApp originally was a subscription service; when I first signed up, it cost $1 per year. They dropped the fee in 2016[1], and now Facebook is trying[2] to go back to the subscription model for business. 1. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/whatsapp-to-go-completely-free-and-drop-annual-subscription-price-a6818971.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne... 2. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/22/facebook-to-charge-for-whatsapp-business-services.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/22/facebook-to-charge-for-whats...
- eqvinox 5y ago
  Oh, interesting, thanks, I didn't actually know that.

stefan_ 5y ago

Well it used to cost like $1 per year and that covered operating expenses many times over, yet..

Ayesh 5y ago
I wonder what is the true server cost of one user to the system. Of course, the initial costs and human costs are quite high, but in a running system, what could be the cost? They are E2E, so it is unlikely that the servers need to do any heavy processing. I see that I unused about 3GB of data for about a year, and with 3GB costing $0.30 even at AWS extortion prices, $1 seems like a good estimate.
chii 5y ago
which they waived very often. I had whatsapp when there was officially a $1 per year cost of subscription, but the first year was free - and then the next, and the next, the "fees" kept getting waived. Then facebook acquired them, and removed the mention of fees altogether.
mrweasel 5y ago
In that case they could easily adjust pricing to match each country and put a positive spin on it. Let people in Europe pay €5 a year, but tell them that they are finasing 5 users in Africa.
- ulfw 5y ago
  Erm yea they still wouldn't pay for this as long as other free alternatives are available. Messengers are a commodity product in terms of functionality. If the captive audience walks elsewhere the messengers dies (see Yahoo Messenger, MSN, AOL, the 250 different ones Google had at some point or other...)
  - josefx 5y ago
    People paid for WhatsApp before Facebook bought it and it was successfull. That is a fact spyware peddlers and their fanboys can't argue away. > Messengers are a commodity product in terms of functionality. They also where when whats app was a paid service. Yet the complaint against signal, etc. is that they are unusable because they are not nearly as full featured, hard to use and that people would rather continue to use WhatsApp for the network effect alone.