5 ms·

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

by 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.
- thu2111 5y ago
  It wasn't really paid. They claimed it was but everyone I know always got the charge waived, which makes sense when you learn it was only ever meant to be a scaling break (see my other comment).
  - rerx 5y ago
    I paid that Euro a couple of times.
    - thu2111 5y ago
      Huh, TIL! It'd be interesting to see what percentage of users got waivers vs charges over time.
      - rerx 5y ago
        I found one charge of 0.89 Eur in April 2013. Probably the first year was free and then I paid once. Maybe they charged me just a single time after all. Quite a bargain to be honest (before the Facebook acquisition at least).
mrweasel 5y ago
Yeah, I guess you're right. It just seems silly that people won't pay something as low as $5 - $10 per year for a service they use daily, while paying for multiple streaming services, cable TV or cell phone plans where they mostly use the data. Sure $10 doesn't represent the same value across the world, but I don't see an issue in letting the western world pay more. US users is already worth more to Facebook than someone in Africa.

by ulfw 5y ago

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.

thu2111 5y ago
It wasn't really paid. They claimed it was but everyone I know always got the charge waived, which makes sense when you learn it was only ever meant to be a scaling break (see my other comment).
- rerx 5y ago
  I paid that Euro a couple of times.
  - thu2111 5y ago
    Huh, TIL! It'd be interesting to see what percentage of users got waivers vs charges over time.
    - rerx 5y ago
      I found one charge of 0.89 Eur in April 2013. Probably the first year was free and then I paid once. Maybe they charged me just a single time after all. Quite a bargain to be honest (before the Facebook acquisition at least).

mrweasel 5y ago

Yeah, I guess you're right. It just seems silly that people won't pay something as low as $5 - $10 per year for a service they use daily, while paying for multiple streaming services, cable TV or cell phone plans where they mostly use the data. Sure $10 doesn't represent the same value across the world, but I don't see an issue in letting the western world pay more. US users is already worth more to Facebook than someone in Africa.