Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money

Re:Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money by wolco on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @05:41PM (#17667265)

Not sure where in the world you live but if the medium income for Malawi is $250 dollars and the medium income where you live is $25,000 convert 1 dollar to $100. Would you pay $100 dollars a year for whatsapp? I wouldn't. For those living in the valley making 250,000 a year that translates to $1,000 dollars. To me that sounds like flushing your money away. The best phones are under 1,000.

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Re:Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money by filleokus on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @06:19PM (#17667590)

I get your point, but the cost of the phone and mobile data to actually use whatsapp has a lower limit as well.

Even if you use whatsapp on a $50 phone (which you use for say 5 years) with a $3/month plan (which seems incredibly cheap), you have amortised costs of $46 per year. Increasing it to $47 to get whatsapp does not seem as unreasonable as you suggest.

Malawi is also an _extremely_ poor country, for reference Bangladesh have ≈ 5% smartphone usage with a GDP of ≈ 4000 USD per capita (PPP) while the GDP of Malawi is ≈ 1000 USD (PPP) per capita.

I would argue that not paying (but having the means to actually use whatsapp!) is more of a choice, or lack of payment infrastructure, rather than not having the disposable income to spend 1 USD per year for the service.

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Re:Facebook’s New Message to WhatsApp: Make Money by blub on Thursday August 02, 2018 @01:59AM (#17669502)

Why are countries where people can't pay $1 per year at all relevant to a discussion on software products?

If India and Malawi and whatever other country can't pay for WhatsApp, they don't get it or Facebook makes it free just for them. Or they find a way to make the ones that can pay do so.

What's the big deal?

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