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A comment on Jan Koum to leave after broad clashes with Facebook. Parent comment

Re:Jan Koum to leave after broad clashes with Facebook by Lionsion on Monday April 30, 2018 @05:58PM (#16962799)
> The network effects would have not worked, because there are many people that can not afford $10 a year. These people would have used an alternative and at the end everyone would have used that alternative (because network effects).

There must be techniques to get around that. Maybe grant free or discounted accounts if you're connected with enough subscribers? Allow subscribers to gift free memberships to their friends? Maybe have a long "initial trial" (e.g. totally free for 1 year)?

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Re:Jan Koum to leave after broad clashes with Facebook by twblalock on Monday April 30, 2018 @06:03PM (#16962834)
WhatsApp and Facebook have many users in the developing world who could not afford a subscription unless the price was extremely low.
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Re:Jan Koum to leave after broad clashes with Facebook by Lionsion on Monday April 30, 2018 @06:17PM (#16962937)
> WhatsApp and Facebook have many users in the developing world who could not afford a subscription unless the price was extremely low.

I would make sense to me to scale the price to the market. Make it $5 in the US and 5 rupees in India.

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Re:Jan Koum to leave after broad clashes with Facebook by ajaimk on Monday April 30, 2018 @08:29PM (#16963729)
They did. Before it all went free
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Re:Jan Koum to leave after broad clashes with Facebook by hengheng on Monday April 30, 2018 @08:31PM (#16963738)
Don't ad earnings scale accordingly?
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Re:Jan Koum to leave after broad clashes with Facebook by kristianc on Monday April 30, 2018 @06:10PM (#16962883)
Salaries in the developing world are low, but they're not that low. Average salary in Brazil is $670/m. $10 per year does not seem overly onerous.
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Re:Jan Koum to leave after broad clashes with Facebook by paxy on Monday April 30, 2018 @06:20PM (#16962962)
Median salary in India (WhatsApp's largest market) is $600-$1500 per year.
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Re:Jan Koum to leave after broad clashes with Facebook by bryanrasmussen on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @04:24AM (#16965376)
that seems like a wide median to me.
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Re:Jan Koum to leave after broad clashes with Facebook by paxy on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @08:56PM (#16973203)
Simply because there's no one objective way to calculate that number. How do you define the total labor force? Do you count seasonal workers? Part-time workers? People who are unemployed but otherwise working age?
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Re:Jan Koum to leave after broad clashes with Facebook by bryanrasmussen on Thursday May 10, 2018 @04:24AM (#17037181)
thanks for the clarification.
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Re:Jan Koum to leave after broad clashes with Facebook by detaro on Monday April 30, 2018 @06:14PM (#16962908)
If there's cheaper/free alternatives?
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Re:Jan Koum to leave after broad clashes with Facebook by isostatic on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @03:12AM (#16965115)
$80 a year seems a lot for someone on $65k/y for an SMS replacement.
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