Users pay $1/year after the first year. At almost half a billion active users that's a pretty great business model.
[edit] Seems my comment is being misunderstood. My point was that FB wouldn't pay $19B unless they planned to monetize beyond the $1/user/year model.
Edit: responding to your edit:
> My point was that FB wouldn't pay $19B unless they planned to monetize beyond the $1/user/year model.
Maybe. I think it's more likely that the social industry has started to peak, and that we'll continue to see FB at the top, buying off small companies as they become threats. Take a look at the movie industry, or any industry with a traditional "Big 4" group of companies.
In other words we can go with your price analysis or with the actual number paid for it. I'll go with the actual number.
A simpler example: Is this bottle of wine worth $200? Maybe not to you...You can make fun of that price. That's cool, free speech, say what you want. But it is selling at that and someone keeps paying that amount for it.
While this writeup may be meaningless in the long term it's still nice to see in comparison to other apps of the "moment".
Once I get there I can solve other problems as they come up. Would that be a reasonable approach?
The key though is that Telegram actually isn't free to consumers when compared to Whatsapp. At $1/year + access to everyone who is already on network vs. $0/year + access to smaller network+need to invite your friends to build that network Whatsapp is actually (significantly) cheaper. If it was more expensive per year I think they'd be giving some room, but no one is even going to notice getting billed.
Simple phone messaging, not likely.
But where does phone messaging lead to?
• Other comms services (voice, voicemail, teleconference, video). There's room for improvement in all of these. Look at the one stand-out from G+: Hangouts.
• Sales or transactions. From text messaging to commerce-via-text is a step. Or banking. Both are directly monetized.
• Some level of community-based information service with a commercial component. I've long wondered why more of the social networks haven't gone here.
Or, of course, "get bought by Facebook".
And although there is likely a slow take up by the elderly, the next generation are all new customers. The 1/5th smartphone ratio can only go up. (This POV is of course assuming WhatsApp wins the messaging war, which is what FB is betting on)