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Comment by tinyhouse | Hacker News Reader

He seems like an amazing guy and that we need more people like him in tech, esp in leadership positions. However, I'm not sure why he was so against monetization. If whatsapp was still an independent company, they would have to monetize somehow. Why cannot FB monetize? As a user of whatsapp I wouldn't even care if the showed ads in big group chats. As long as there would be zero tracking or leaking of data and ads would be solely based on location and maybe chat info.

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> If whatsapp was still an independent company, they would have to monetize somehow.

No, they wouldn't. This thinking is what has lead the world where it is.

Say you have 2 billion (10^9) users paying $1 per year. You follow inflation. That's 2 billion a year. That covers a lot of workforce, and a lot of servers.

This idea of infinite growth boggles me - how can people with math background insist on such impossible thought?

Do we have different definitions of monetization? Because to me that's exactly what charging $1 per year sounds like.

Fair point. The problem with the word `monetization` probably comes from recent times, when it sort of became the corporate bs equivalent of squeezing more money out of the same thing by adding ads, selling data, etc.

I'm unable to find the exact quote but soon after the WhatsApp acquisition, when the $1 fee was waived there was a message that went along the lines of "imagine how much more money WhatsApp could make". If someone has it, please send a link.

Good luck having 2 billion people paying you $1 when there are free alternatives.

I paid a buck when I got whatsapp, I see my first chat backup from October 2012 :) I did so because my friends were on whatsapp, and I think all of us would have paid a buck a year if that's what the model evolved to.

Unfortunately, the world turned towards 1) freemium, and 2) 'consumer as a product', and it will not be easy to roll back the free chat. But I think it is possible. Make signal survive for 2 years based on donations, or this 1 buck a year/month, and we may be able to have a long term alternative to whatsapp.

Honestly, up until a couple of years ago, WhatsApp wasn't free for iPhone. Yet people still downloaded it and bought it

They didn't pay it. It was mostly just testing on a subset of US users.

I paid, and I wasn’t in the US.

There are free alternatives for food (soup kitchens), yet people still go to restaurants.

I didn't say people are not willing to pay money to use an app that has free alternatives. I said good luck finding 2 billion such people. Whatsapp today is used by everyone. 8 year old kids and 85 year olds. The network effect. Its biggest asset is the number of users which makes it easy to communicate with everyone you know on it (not everywhere but in many countries). If they charged money it would've been different. It's not about the money. Everyone can afford $1/year. Even kids in poor countries. But not everyone has access to a credit card for example. Many wouldn't bother and use a free alternative like FB messenger or Telegram or whatever.

When you have that many users, their yearly dues is no longer as valuable to the company and its partners, as user data.

I agree. I've been switching messaging apps (first on Windows in the 90s then on phones in the 00s) when a new free one with better features appeared or the previous one asked for money. Then WhatsApp got such a user base to make switching nearly impossible. But if they really enforced the $1 payment everybody would have switched to something else.

As popular as it is in Europe today, I imagine they may have actually reached a number like that

It was this popular in 2012 already. For Android users first year was free and then you could be charged €0.89/year. I knew paying customers and was willing to do the same. It's a great product at a great price without ads, just take my money. I'd rather pay for a service than be monetized in exchange for using it.

BTW, they had just 50 engineers when FB bought them with 450M users (+1M/day) and they supported more devices back then. Just with those costs and the network effect, keeping the subscription model would have meant a solid source of honest revenue.

$1 a year ? There'll be plenty of takers even in India for this.

10% of that is 200 million.

5% of that is 50 million.

> As a user of whatsapp I wouldn't even care if the showed ads in big group chats. As long as there would be zero tracking or leaking of data and ads would be solely based on location and maybe chat info.

For Christ's sake NO!

WhatsApp had a $1 annual fee and 400M users prior to FB acquisition. Just FYI.

I know that but it's not that they had $400M in revenue. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25666270

FB never charged for whatsapp for a good reason.

In the UK I remember it being both a small required annual fee and very popular - but that's just as anecdotal as the comments in your link.

They did/do, just not in direct payment.

Even if you downloaded all ads in advance and ran all the logic client side, basing ads on chat info would inevitably leak information if the ad was ever clicked.

True but I'm sure they can come up with something. Maybe unclickable ads like "buy dominos pizza, only today 5% off" or "watch NBA on Prime today 7pm"...

Unclickable ads are a super interesting idea, I've never thought about that. It would change so much of the internet if ads were that simplistic.

Inevitably advertisers will want to measure the effectiveness of their advertising, so "use code XYZ at checkout" will, and "mention this ad" could, still leak targeting information.

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