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I do actually find their monetization strategy laudable. Selling your product to users is, in my view, a far more ethical monetization strategy than selling yo

I do actually find their monetization strategy laudable. Selling your product to users is, in my view, a far more ethical monetization strategy than selling your users to advertisers, and tends to result in far less potential conflicts of interest. That said, I also believe communication in general is too important to be left to proprietary software, which is why I won't be using WhatsApp anytime soon.

netcan 12y ago
If you want to have a messaging app, everyone needs to have it. If everyone needs to have it it needs to be free. Even if you could run this app by charging users just 50c, it would fail and get beat by an app that was free.
- IanCal 12y ago
  > If you want to have a messaging app, everyone needs to have it. The people I want to talk to most need to have it. > If everyone needs to have it it needs to be free. Or at a cost they're willing to pay. > Even if you could run this app by charging users just 50c, it would fail and get beat by an app that was free. Assuming of course that the other app could sustain itself. I don't understand your argument. SMS worked just fine for a long time and is still used, yet it costs money either monthly or per message. Telephone calls cost money. Sending letters costs money. I'd hardly count those as failures when it comes to messaging mediums.
  - yoz-y 12y ago
    SMS had the advantage that everybody had SMS. This is not the case at all for new messaging services. People do not want to use another messaging service, there are already too many. WhatsApp was one of the first and came in time where connectivity got barely good enough to support the service, that gave them a huge advantage.
    - IanCal 12y ago
      > SMS had the advantage that everybody had SMS Well not everyone (the first one was sent 7 years after the first mobile phone call). And if you want to consider it to be everyone, then it's an example of something where everyone has it yet it's not free. > People do not want to use another messaging service No, and therefore you need to offer something better to make up for the annoyance of changing. I understand your point, it's the clearest example of a network effect and given two identical products the cheaper should be more attractive. However, this doesn't mean it has to have everyone and has to be free. Those are beneficial, but not absolute requirements. Right now, I'd pay money for a decent messaging service with push & pull, with a simple API that supports sending images. It doesn't even have to have many users, I simply want this service at the moment and will pay money for it.
- deleted 12y ago
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netcan 12y ago

If you want to have a messaging app, everyone needs to have it. If everyone needs to have it it needs to be free. Even if you could run this app by charging users just 50c, it would fail and get beat by an app that was free.

IanCal 12y ago
> If you want to have a messaging app, everyone needs to have it. The people I want to talk to most need to have it. > If everyone needs to have it it needs to be free. Or at a cost they're willing to pay. > Even if you could run this app by charging users just 50c, it would fail and get beat by an app that was free. Assuming of course that the other app could sustain itself. I don't understand your argument. SMS worked just fine for a long time and is still used, yet it costs money either monthly or per message. Telephone calls cost money. Sending letters costs money. I'd hardly count those as failures when it comes to messaging mediums.
- yoz-y 12y ago
  SMS had the advantage that everybody had SMS. This is not the case at all for new messaging services. People do not want to use another messaging service, there are already too many. WhatsApp was one of the first and came in time where connectivity got barely good enough to support the service, that gave them a huge advantage.
  - IanCal 12y ago
    > SMS had the advantage that everybody had SMS Well not everyone (the first one was sent 7 years after the first mobile phone call). And if you want to consider it to be everyone, then it's an example of something where everyone has it yet it's not free. > People do not want to use another messaging service No, and therefore you need to offer something better to make up for the annoyance of changing. I understand your point, it's the clearest example of a network effect and given two identical products the cheaper should be more attractive. However, this doesn't mean it has to have everyone and has to be free. Those are beneficial, but not absolute requirements. Right now, I'd pay money for a decent messaging service with push & pull, with a simple API that supports sending images. It doesn't even have to have many users, I simply want this service at the moment and will pay money for it.
deleted 12y ago
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