I remember this pretty clearly. I always liked the $0.99 per year model because it was pure and simple. However, it was a three way decision with Mark for it, Jan somewhat on the fence, and me against. The primary argument being that payment was artificially hindering growth. Frankly, our growth was just fine at the time. History tells us how the decision landed.

Just for clarity, you liked the $0.99 model, but you were against it at the time because it would hinder growth, or you were against the idea of adding advertising once WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook?

I think Brian means that he was against moving to advertising, and Mark was for it.

What was the margin on that $0.99 per year? I guess that was before you could send media?

Was 0.99 per year even profitable?

Economies of scale would make it profitable considering WhatsApp doesn’t even have to host anything, just relay messages, and since it’s a private platform there are no moderation expenses either.

I don't think that's its not hosting anything...

http://www.erlang-factory.com/upload/presentations/558/efsf2...

You can share files with a maximum size of 100MB. And if I'm not mistaken, those are hosted and available without expiry date.

No, considering the development and testing costs (it works on the cheapest Indian phones), abuse prevention, etc.

(Cue "I haven't used any new feature since e2e encryption")

You guys really should take what you learned building WhatsApp and start over.

Make it subscription based, with a low bar of entry ($10 or so per month), don't do ads, don't do data harvesting (unless required by law enforcement) and/or "science" (for profit), guarantee freedom of speech (as long as said speech is protected by law, ofcourse) -- in other words: don't become Zuck -- and you will outcompete Facebook come 2025.

10$ month as low barrier of entry for a messaging app is unthinkable for most of the users. Especially for those regions that WhatsApp serves now.

There is a small handful of things will pay more than $10/month for: my mortgage, car, and utilities. We cancelled Amazon prime when it hit that, and will cancel Netflix when it hits that. I will not pay for text messaging; I'll happily continue using Android messaging instead.

$120 a year when all the competitors are free?

Ten bucks a month? For instant messaging? Did you think this through?

I mean, that's like.. The price of a pound of bananas right?. /s Some people are delusional.

Not affiliated in any way, but you should give Signal a try.

The hardest part with any IM service is going to be convincing your friends to join though. I wish someone came up with a good way to overcome this "critical mass" problem.

Also not affiliated, just an user -- but Telegram has a lot of momentum going for it. It's possibly more of a substitute for Facebook than Whatsapp at this point, but in chat form, with a rich bot ecosystem and great UX.

Telegram is spyware, just like WhatsApp.

No, it's not...

My wife and I tried Signal in the past and ran into situations where messages were lost or sometimes delayed by hours, some showing up well after other messages were, making conversations occasionally very frustrating.

Messaging apps are definitely one of those situations where I expect things to work all of the time, not just most of the time.

I've had no issues with Telegram, and I think, although less secure than Signal, it's a great option to replace Whatsapp.

Feature wise telegram is definitely the best challenger right now. Signal is good but not as good. I wish it was better because of privacy. I like telegram too much now.

I had exactly those same problems.

I used it with a group of friends but one of them often didn't receive our replies.

Happens to me too.

I'm really hoping that Chat over IMAP picks up. I use Delta Chat every now and then with some journalists who have it installed, and it just makes so much sense. We already have everyone's mail ID's anyway. Or at least I thought so. In countries like India, a large number of people have skipped email and gone to phone based services. So for Chat over IMAP to succeed over here it would need to have phone number based matching cos people do not use their mail ID's at all. Everything gets done over whatsapp.

Delta chat will never take off because every single mail provider throttles the number of emails going through its servers to prevent spam.

Exactly, theres always the network effect that keeps you hostage.

For me personally, this will be the moment to draw a line and just tell people to text me instead, or use another service...

It's never gonna happen. Mainstream users and media don't care enough.

I've told the important people in my life that if they want to message me, they will need do it through Signal. It takes 2 minutes to set up, I show them how, and tell them that I won't reply to any SMS.

Many switched, including the least technical people I know. A few did not. It's really not hard; you just have to draw a line in the sand.

As a result of everyone I know using Signal, it fundamentally doesn't matter to me if the "mainstream" switches. We're already all on board.

And then you end up in that situation when they didn't actually switch, but rather made you a favor and caved in to your self-centric demands and stubborness. Like with a tantrum-prone child. They still use WhatsApp between themselves, because that's what their dentist, car mechanic and a favourite sushi takeout use. They will also more eagerly reply to IMs if they are not sent through your preferred chat system. So in the end you technically made them do your thing, but the victory is hollow.

Ask me how I know.

Perhaps I wasn't clear, but I couldn't care less what they use to message their dentist. I care that they use Signal to message me.

The problem is when one friend demands Signal, another WhatsApp, another Matrix, another Telegram, another Threema. These are all closed platforms and having loads of different apps installed which perform similar functions，to satisfy various people's dogmatic views is annoying.

Matrix is not a closed platform, and in fact the only one of the projects you mentioned that even makes an attempt to work together with other chat protocols and networks. It is explicitly open, not locked in to any single service provider, and making an explicit effort to not limit you to chat with only other Matrix users (despite how much Signal or WhatsApp works towards the opposite).

You just made them install one more app. And you lost friends because they didn't install an app. What a dumb way to spite Facebook.

If a "friend" won't install an app (a 2 minute commitment?) to remain in contact, then I'm honestly fine without them contacting me. To each his own.

> (a 2 minute commitment?)

Installing an app is more than a 2 minute commitment. You also have to be OK with that app running on your device.

It's not even that.

An average person will have pages of apps installed, but that would actually use only what's on the first page. So they have a choice of bumping something off their precious FP to fit my special app or just keep it where it lands after installation, on the back pages. And if it ends up there, out of rotation, it won't see much voluntary use.

Email. Matrix. XMPP.

All of these have a very important aspect in common: you can choose your application you want to access the network with. I'm tired of needing to use The Official®©™ App, and Signal is no exception. It's also a single entity thus being a single point of failure.

If you really want to make a difference please try to make people to migrate to something open. Quicksy[^1], DeltaChat[^2], something. But not another, essentially closed platform.

[^1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.quicksy.cli...

[^2]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=chat.delta

I agree. However email metadata isn't secure, so that's a nonstarter. I'm rooting for Matrix but thusfar Riot's UX to get an encrypted conversation going leaves a lot to be desired. No way are the non-technical people I know going to be able to do that. Signal "just works" with secure defaults, so that's the best we've got for now.

Use Pyre.chat or signal-weechat. There are other options beyond Signal to chat with contacts on Signal.

> I've told the important people in my life that if they want to message me, they will need do it through Signal. It takes 2 minutes to set up, I show them how, and tell them that I won't reply to any SMS.

I've done the opposite: there's no way I'm going to install a messaging app, and everyone I care to interact with knows they need to either use SMS or email to reach me. Everyone's been perfectly fine with that.

> […] and tell them that I won't reply to any SMS.

How do you handle dumb/feature phone users?

WhatsApp itself started as an obscure chat application. They nailed the simple SMS-like experience without high SMS fees, and that was enough for mainstream users. No reason people won't jump ship when WhatsApp loses that core experience.

It's still going to remain the same. Whatsapp is too big to fail, perhaps people in the US just don't comprehend how big of a user base Whatsapp has around the world.

I don't live in the US and fully understand WhatsApp's ubiquity. As others have commented, AOL instant messenger once seemed "too big to fail".

There's not that much friction in changing to (or simply adopting a second) chat app - especially one which uses your phone number as an identifier.

> WhatsApp itself started as an obscure chat application

It actually started as a one-line status app, a bit like finger for the mobile era. Hence the name.

It was only when they discovered that users were interactively chatting by changing their status lines in response to each other that WhatsApp pivoted to full chat.

A good example of adapting to improvised user behaviour.

AOL. ICQ. Google Talk. Skype.

People do migrate when the platform is FUBAR.

You should know that Whatsapp advertising has been a thing for quite a while. It's an option you tick in the FB ads dashboard.

Many people use WhatsApp but aren't on Facebook. I've never seen ads so far.

Companies pay to initiate conversations with them. I assure you these ads exist and are purchased in the same place as any other FB ads using the same targeting FB has for any other ad placement.

First installed WhatsApp in 2010. It was $2.99 on the Blackberry App Store. I remember feeling miffed because the iOS/Android version was free. Seems ridiculous now, in light of everything that happened since.

Use Telegram :D