4 ms·

>Have you considered the alternative? Yes and they are better. i'm using Hangouts, Telegram and Line... why should I use WhatsApp? These App all have more func

>Have you considered the alternative? Yes and they are better. i'm using Hangouts, Telegram and Line... why should I use WhatsApp? These App all have more functionalities and are "free".

igvadaimon 11y ago
It's not "alternative to whatsapp", it's "alternative app monetization strategy".
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- sososoko 11y ago
  flew right past him. What would be a better monetization alternative though?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- aryamaan 11y ago
  what does that mean?
quonn 11y ago
I'm using it because everyone else is on WhatsApp.
berdario 11y ago
I used to use Google Talk, but I find Hangouts sometimes unreliable. Nowadays I only use Hangouts with my mother (because she doesn't want to switch to other services). I dislike to use something closed source like Whatsapp, but it's not like Hangouts, Telegram or Line are much better (almost no one I know is connecting to Google's servers with XMPP, and Telegram doesn't have an open source server implementation) I started to use Telegram recently, thanks to my Ubuntu phone, but I don't like the fact that it's storing the messages unencrypted server-side. Whatsapp is much better on this front, since everything is encrypted by default, and usage across multiple devices (i.e. desktop) is handled wonderfully by the webapp. OTOH, neither Whatsapp nor Telegram afaik give you any way to verify the identify of the other person, and E2E encryption without identity verification is of dubious utility... TextSecure is nice, but it has only barely more users than Telegram
nodata 11y ago
Why Telegram and not Signal/TextSecure?
- dewey 11y ago
  They don't have a Desktop client.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - explorigin 11y ago
    Well they're working on a solution here: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure-Browser https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure-Browser
mrweasel 11y ago
That's not what he mean. The question is "Have you considered the alternative to charging for WhatsApp". The alternative would be advertising or selling access to user data. My general take is that if you need advertising to monetise your product, then maybe your product isn't as good as you think it is. Most newspapers are a good example of this, if you need a ton of ads on your website to make money, maybe your not doing a good enough job providing news that people are willing to pay for. As service become more and more depended on ads, the quality of the product starts to take a back seat and in the end you end up with click bait. Google might be an exception, they seem to have found a mix that people can live with, or perhaps they're just really good at hiding ads in plain sight.
sososoko 11y ago
i have used each of the ones u mentioned, even used Path Talk, and Kakao Talk, and Wechat, these are very popular in Asia. I always feel they are boated with unnecessary functions. All i want( as well as many people) is to send a message/picture & the ocassional video quickly and efficiently. If only hangouts was more like the good old google talk. Line is starting to look like a social network, same with Kakao. I don't want stickers i just want no frills messaging. Whatsapp prides itself as being like SMS, and that's exactly what i want, but without the expensive SMS rates(for us from Africa & Asia)

>Have you considered the alternative? Yes and they are better. i'm using Hangouts, Telegram and Line... why should I use WhatsApp? These App all have more functionalities and are "free".

igvadaimon 11y ago

It's not "alternative to whatsapp", it's "alternative app monetization strategy".

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
sososoko 11y ago
flew right past him. What would be a better monetization alternative though?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
aryamaan 11y ago
what does that mean?

quonn 11y ago

I'm using it because everyone else is on WhatsApp.

berdario 11y ago

I used to use Google Talk, but I find Hangouts sometimes unreliable. Nowadays I only use Hangouts with my mother (because she doesn't want to switch to other services). I dislike to use something closed source like Whatsapp, but it's not like Hangouts, Telegram or Line are much better (almost no one I know is connecting to Google's servers with XMPP, and Telegram doesn't have an open source server implementation) I started to use Telegram recently, thanks to my Ubuntu phone, but I don't like the fact that it's storing the messages unencrypted server-side. Whatsapp is much better on this front, since everything is encrypted by default, and usage across multiple devices (i.e. desktop) is handled wonderfully by the webapp. OTOH, neither Whatsapp nor Telegram afaik give you any way to verify the identify of the other person, and E2E encryption without identity verification is of dubious utility... TextSecure is nice, but it has only barely more users than Telegram

nodata 11y ago

Why Telegram and not Signal/TextSecure?

dewey 11y ago
They don't have a Desktop client.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- explorigin 11y ago
  Well they're working on a solution here: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure-Browser https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure-Browser

mrweasel 11y ago

That's not what he mean. The question is "Have you considered the alternative to charging for WhatsApp". The alternative would be advertising or selling access to user data. My general take is that if you need advertising to monetise your product, then maybe your product isn't as good as you think it is. Most newspapers are a good example of this, if you need a ton of ads on your website to make money, maybe your not doing a good enough job providing news that people are willing to pay for. As service become more and more depended on ads, the quality of the product starts to take a back seat and in the end you end up with click bait. Google might be an exception, they seem to have found a mix that people can live with, or perhaps they're just really good at hiding ads in plain sight.

sososoko 11y ago

i have used each of the ones u mentioned, even used Path Talk, and Kakao Talk, and Wechat, these are very popular in Asia. I always feel they are boated with unnecessary functions. All i want( as well as many people) is to send a message/picture & the ocassional video quickly and efficiently. If only hangouts was more like the good old google talk. Line is starting to look like a social network, same with Kakao. I don't want stickers i just want no frills messaging. Whatsapp prides itself as being like SMS, and that's exactly what i want, but without the expensive SMS rates(for us from Africa & Asia)