Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and WhatsApp’s Founders

Re:Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and Wh... by alokrai on Tuesday June 05, 2018 @01:34PM (#17240039)

WhatsApp had a subscriber model (99 cents per year). It was still very successful in India, a relatively poor country. I remember visiting villages in India, where people who are quite poor by western standards, still preferred using WhatsApp to other services.

I think that reasonably priced subscription model, perhaps taking in account the per capita income of the country, could help preserve privacy while also ensuring mass access to technologies.

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Re:Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and Wh... by majidazimi on Tuesday June 05, 2018 @02:39PM (#17240712)

The problem is greedy attitude of people. As long as one can earn more by selling user information, there is no incentive for reasonably priced subscription model.

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Re:Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and Wh... by mcintyre1994 on Tuesday June 05, 2018 @04:00PM (#17241477)

Do you know that those Indian people had actually paid for WhatsApp? I never had to pay, and most people I know (UK) don't seem to have done either. I don't know what the criteria was but it'd be pretty weird if they were charging people more aggressively in India than the UK. Maybe the whole not charging thing was a bug, it's always seemed weird.

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Re:Behind the Messy, Expensive Split Between Facebook and Wh... by skinnymuch on Wednesday June 06, 2018 @01:38PM (#17249238)

I don’t think many if any Indian people actually paid for Whatsapp. Most people overall didn’t pay for it.

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