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Whatsapp used to charge 1 eur or usd per year per user. Assuming a 20% vat, that’s $800M in yearly revenue. If you spend $500k per engineer per year, you’re st

Whatsapp used to charge 1 eur or usd per year per user. Assuming a 20% vat, that’s $800M in yearly revenue. If you spend $500k per engineer per year, you’re still left with $775M to handle infrastructure and all other expenses. Whatsapp would have been sustainable without fb. That’s the regret.

harpratap 5y ago
You are very naively assuming it would actually reach 1B users if it was paid.
- grardb 5y ago
  Technically, but GP is allocating over 95% of post-tax revenue to everything other than engineer salaries, which is probably extremely generous. WhatsApp had 200M users in February 2013[1], which was a year before they were acquired by Facebook. Perhaps they wouldn't have gotten to 1B users without Facebook, but I'm sure they still would've grown in the last ~8 years, and fewer users likely results in lower costs. My guess is they would still be doing very well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp
  - YetAnotherNick 5y ago
    Even before the sale, most of the customers are non paying. They are offering the service for free in countries with largest userbase(India and Brazil I think). I really doubt it had reached 50 million paying at any point in time.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
kosolam 5y ago
Exactly. Facebook bought WhatsApp’s users like cattle on auction. WhatsApp guys just needed the right price offer. Now with pseudo tech posts like the current they are trying to mask it’s public image behind some ancient tech innovation from it’s past…
- foepys 5y ago
  WA Management was misled by Facebook about what FB wanted to do with WA. I agree that you'd have to pretty naive to believe FB but it's not like WA founders sold solely because of money.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I think you would have to be pretty naive to think WA founders were above having a price at which they would sell solely for the money.
    - foepys 5y ago
      WhatsApp founder Brian Acton left 850 million USD on the table when he left Facebook prematurely in protest of Facebook's lies about the vision they had for WhatsApp after its acquisition. After that he donated 50 million USD to the Signal foundation.
mrich 5y ago
Facebook to WhatsApp team in the acquisition negotiations: "If you don't sell to us, we'll build our own and offer it for free" And they would have been out of business sooner or later. There are enough people wanting to save that one dollar.
- pydry 5y ago
  There are plenty of other ways they could have made money that weren't scummy and didnt require hitting up every user for $1. Business accounts, facilitating p2p payments (minus a scummy new coin), etc. Sustainability would have been possible in all sorts of ways even though massive levels of profits (in any company) inevitably means being scummy.
- the_other 5y ago
  Facebook now have to maintain Messenger AND WhatsApp. And Insta also has chat. So I disagree that FB could have killed WA.
  - the_other 5y ago
    I’m tempted to go further. FB bought WA because it would have killed their ad business.
- hbn 5y ago
  > If you don't sell to us, we'll build our own and offer it for free Weren't they already doing that? Facebook Messenger officially launched in 2011 (essentially an upgrade to Facebook's built-in chat functionality which existed before that) and was free, yet Whatsapp continued to grow.
dncornholio 5y ago
I've used Whatsapp for a few years when they had this pricing model. Use 1 year for free and pay after. I've never paid anything and nobody who I know needed to pay to keep using WhatsApp.
- ducklingslicks 5y ago
  I think it was free on Android but not on iOS. But not completely sure because I only had Android back then
  - robjan 5y ago
    It was a one off payment on iOS but a poorly enforced annual subscription on Android
raverbashing 5y ago
Much cheaper than what fb makes on ads per user per year, I'm sure
mrweasel 5y ago
They could also easily have had different pricing based on location. Requiring EU and US users to pay €5 per year, while have perhaps just €0,25 in Asia, and free in Africa. If you can't get someone to pay €5/$5 per year for a service they use every single day, then there's something really wrong in how we as users think about the service we use every day.
- dunefox 5y ago
  > If you can't get someone to pay €5/$5 per year for a service they use every single day, then there's something really wrong in how we as users think about the service we use every day. Which is absolutely the case with most people and recurring payments, even with one time payments. If Signal costed money (even 1-2$), I could not have convinced even 10% of the people I got over to Signal - recurring or one time.

harpratap 5y ago

You are very naively assuming it would actually reach 1B users if it was paid.

grardb 5y ago
Technically, but GP is allocating over 95% of post-tax revenue to everything other than engineer salaries, which is probably extremely generous. WhatsApp had 200M users in February 2013[1], which was a year before they were acquired by Facebook. Perhaps they wouldn't have gotten to 1B users without Facebook, but I'm sure they still would've grown in the last ~8 years, and fewer users likely results in lower costs. My guess is they would still be doing very well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp
- YetAnotherNick 5y ago
  Even before the sale, most of the customers are non paying. They are offering the service for free in countries with largest userbase(India and Brazil I think). I really doubt it had reached 50 million paying at any point in time.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

kosolam 5y ago

Exactly. Facebook bought WhatsApp’s users like cattle on auction. WhatsApp guys just needed the right price offer. Now with pseudo tech posts like the current they are trying to mask it’s public image behind some ancient tech innovation from it’s past…

foepys 5y ago
WA Management was misled by Facebook about what FB wanted to do with WA. I agree that you'd have to pretty naive to believe FB but it's not like WA founders sold solely because of money.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I think you would have to be pretty naive to think WA founders were above having a price at which they would sell solely for the money.
  - foepys 5y ago
    WhatsApp founder Brian Acton left 850 million USD on the table when he left Facebook prematurely in protest of Facebook's lies about the vision they had for WhatsApp after its acquisition. After that he donated 50 million USD to the Signal foundation.

mrich 5y ago

Facebook to WhatsApp team in the acquisition negotiations: "If you don't sell to us, we'll build our own and offer it for free" And they would have been out of business sooner or later. There are enough people wanting to save that one dollar.

pydry 5y ago
There are plenty of other ways they could have made money that weren't scummy and didnt require hitting up every user for $1. Business accounts, facilitating p2p payments (minus a scummy new coin), etc. Sustainability would have been possible in all sorts of ways even though massive levels of profits (in any company) inevitably means being scummy.
the_other 5y ago
Facebook now have to maintain Messenger AND WhatsApp. And Insta also has chat. So I disagree that FB could have killed WA.
- the_other 5y ago
  I’m tempted to go further. FB bought WA because it would have killed their ad business.
hbn 5y ago
> If you don't sell to us, we'll build our own and offer it for free Weren't they already doing that? Facebook Messenger officially launched in 2011 (essentially an upgrade to Facebook's built-in chat functionality which existed before that) and was free, yet Whatsapp continued to grow.

dncornholio 5y ago

I've used Whatsapp for a few years when they had this pricing model. Use 1 year for free and pay after. I've never paid anything and nobody who I know needed to pay to keep using WhatsApp.

ducklingslicks 5y ago
I think it was free on Android but not on iOS. But not completely sure because I only had Android back then
- robjan 5y ago
  It was a one off payment on iOS but a poorly enforced annual subscription on Android

raverbashing 5y ago

Much cheaper than what fb makes on ads per user per year, I'm sure

mrweasel 5y ago

They could also easily have had different pricing based on location. Requiring EU and US users to pay €5 per year, while have perhaps just €0,25 in Asia, and free in Africa. If you can't get someone to pay €5/$5 per year for a service they use every single day, then there's something really wrong in how we as users think about the service we use every day.

dunefox 5y ago
> If you can't get someone to pay €5/$5 per year for a service they use every single day, then there's something really wrong in how we as users think about the service we use every day. Which is absolutely the case with most people and recurring payments, even with one time payments. If Signal costed money (even 1-2$), I could not have convinced even 10% of the people I got over to Signal - recurring or one time.