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True, but the vast majority of people spend zero money on WhatsApp. I actually have no idea how I would give them money. There are no adverts, the metadata is n

True, but the vast majority of people spend zero money on WhatsApp. I actually have no idea how I would give them money. There are no adverts, the metadata is not valuable, and no companies even use WhatsApp business, at least in the UK. Their UK revenue is basically 0, despite 100% market share. This is an enterprise product in a space where companies spend millions of dollars. Still seems like an insane amount though.

quantumwannabe 2y ago
Whatsapp when it was acquired cost $1/year (with a year long free trial) and had a billion users and 55 employees. They were printing money.
- IshKebab 2y ago
  As far as I remember they didn't ever really collect that money though. I certainly never paid it. I'm not sure they ever even implemented payment on Android. Obviously hard to source this old stuff but I found an old Reddit comment that backs up my recollection: https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsapp/comments/xesw29/comment/ioifnzf/ https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsapp/comments/xesw29/comment/io...
  - SushiHippie 2y ago
    I'm fairly certain that I paid once for WhatsApp back in the day (on Android) EDIT: just checked my payment history and in November 2013 I paid €0.89 for "One Year Service"
  - guappa 2y ago
    They were collecting. Everyone I knew was paying.
zck 2y ago
Just to respond to the Whatsapp part of the comment, apparently Whatsapp made about $1.7 billion in 2024. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/whatsapp-statistics/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/whatsapp-statistics/
- steventhedev 2y ago
  That is suspiciously equal to the "Other revenue" line in Meta's 10-K. Given that likely rolls up other products I doubt it's all coming from Whatsapp. [0]: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001326801/1f8bf8eb-a7ee-4d0c-979c-ca0f22cf633f.html# https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001326801/1f8bf8e...
deleted 2y ago
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guappa 2y ago
Like for whatsapp, they're buying the database, not the product.

quantumwannabe 2y ago

Whatsapp when it was acquired cost $1/year (with a year long free trial) and had a billion users and 55 employees. They were printing money.

IshKebab 2y ago
As far as I remember they didn't ever really collect that money though. I certainly never paid it. I'm not sure they ever even implemented payment on Android. Obviously hard to source this old stuff but I found an old Reddit comment that backs up my recollection: https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsapp/comments/xesw29/comment/ioifnzf/ https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsapp/comments/xesw29/comment/io...
- SushiHippie 2y ago
  I'm fairly certain that I paid once for WhatsApp back in the day (on Android) EDIT: just checked my payment history and in November 2013 I paid €0.89 for "One Year Service"
- guappa 2y ago
  They were collecting. Everyone I knew was paying.

zck 2y ago

Just to respond to the Whatsapp part of the comment, apparently Whatsapp made about $1.7 billion in 2024. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/whatsapp-statistics/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/whatsapp-statistics/

steventhedev 2y ago
That is suspiciously equal to the "Other revenue" line in Meta's 10-K. Given that likely rolls up other products I doubt it's all coming from Whatsapp. [0]: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001326801/1f8bf8eb-a7ee-4d0c-979c-ca0f22cf633f.html# https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001326801/1f8bf8e...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

guappa 2y ago

Like for whatsapp, they're buying the database, not the product.