Re:WhatsApp Cofounder on How It Reached 1.3B Users Without L...
by candiodari on Monday September 04, 2017 @02:07AM
(#15166050)
It's weird, you hit the nail on the head in your first line, then skip the essentials on the next line.
WhatsApp: circumvent cellphone texting charges, making texting cheaper
Airbnb: circumvent hotel laws, making staying anywhere cheaper
Uber: circumvent taxi laws, making taxis and flexible transport cheaper
Amazon: circumvent state taxes (and VAT, until recently, and still the case in Europe, Australia and I'm sure many other jurisdictions), making getting mail-order goods cheaper
PS for Amazon: and also making mail-order a great deal faster.
PPS for Amazon: also cut out many middlemen to make things cheaper.
Facebook: make advertising to particular groups, accurately identified, a LOT cheaper
Google: Make it a lot cheaper to find things online.
But Why stay in tech ?
Aldi + their discounter competitors: Make groceries a lot cheaper by cutting out the middleman
GE, in their day: Make lighting and anything that could be done cheaper electrically a lot cheaper. Or possible at all in the first place.
VW, in their day: make owning a car a lot cheaper.
GDF/Suez: make transporting goods from Europe to Asia a lot faster (but mostly cheaper).
Keep in mind Jevon's paradox. Cheaper does not just mean cheaper, as in less dollars. It also means that whatever becomes cheaper becomes more ubiquitous. Faster. Becomes accessible for more people, either in difficult geographies, or poor, or ... It also means those things become feasible to use for various purposes that they couldn't be used for before. It means a lot more of said good/service will get used. And so on and so forth.
You want to make $1 million ? Become great in a particular subject, and consult.
You want to make $10-$100 million ? Start a company with a niche product, and do it really well.
Want to make $100 million - $1 billion ? Start a company and bribe the government, so that it either pays you directly or forces loads of people to pay for your services (lots of these in Washington and Brussels)
You want to make $1-$10 billion ? Make some stupid ubiquitous product cheaper. Think the most moronic normal things in existence. Breakfast cereal. Grapes. Web search.
WhatsApp: circumvent cellphone texting charges, making texting cheaper
Airbnb: circumvent hotel laws, making staying anywhere cheaper
Uber: circumvent taxi laws, making taxis and flexible transport cheaper
Amazon: circumvent state taxes (and VAT, until recently, and still the case in Europe, Australia and I'm sure many other jurisdictions), making getting mail-order goods cheaper
PS for Amazon: and also making mail-order a great deal faster.
PPS for Amazon: also cut out many middlemen to make things cheaper.
Facebook: make advertising to particular groups, accurately identified, a LOT cheaper
Google: Make it a lot cheaper to find things online.
But Why stay in tech ?
Aldi + their discounter competitors: Make groceries a lot cheaper by cutting out the middleman
GE, in their day: Make lighting and anything that could be done cheaper electrically a lot cheaper. Or possible at all in the first place.
VW, in their day: make owning a car a lot cheaper.
GDF/Suez: make transporting goods from Europe to Asia a lot faster (but mostly cheaper).
Keep in mind Jevon's paradox. Cheaper does not just mean cheaper, as in less dollars. It also means that whatever becomes cheaper becomes more ubiquitous. Faster. Becomes accessible for more people, either in difficult geographies, or poor, or ... It also means those things become feasible to use for various purposes that they couldn't be used for before. It means a lot more of said good/service will get used. And so on and so forth.
You want to make $1 million ? Become great in a particular subject, and consult.
You want to make $10-$100 million ? Start a company with a niche product, and do it really well.
Want to make $100 million - $1 billion ? Start a company and bribe the government, so that it either pays you directly or forces loads of people to pay for your services (lots of these in Washington and Brussels)
You want to make $1-$10 billion ? Make some stupid ubiquitous product cheaper. Think the most moronic normal things in existence. Breakfast cereal. Grapes. Web search.