Re:We Don't Sell Ads (2012)
by amateurdev on Friday January 08, 2021 @02:48PM
(#25689373)
I doubt that was the intent at the time. Sure they'd be looking for ways to monetize, but could the co-founder in 2012 have predicted what FB as an entity would become ~10 years later?
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Re:We Don't Sell Ads (2012)
by lotsofpulp on Friday January 08, 2021 @02:57PM
(#25689506)
Yes, if someone offers to pay you $20B for your chat app, it’s not out of charity.
I’m not blaming them for selling out for $20B, I would have done the same. But I won’t believe they didn’t know what was going to happen.
Facebook was making money from ads when they sold WhatsApp to FB. They had to know that was the plan.
I don't fault them for selling, I fault everyone else for assuming it would always be ad free after the sale.
Well, if it would been a free app, OK. But one did pay for this feature, isn't it. So I want my dollar back.
That's a fair point in general, but I think that by the time FB acquired whatsapp the writing was in the wall and I feel that the founders probably knew where things were headed.
This is the timeline as I recall it (and from quickly googling a couple of articles), feel free to correct me if I'm getting things wrong:
2012: this article
2014: FB acquires whatsapp
2016: Whatsapp becomes free (drops the $1 purchase fee)
2018: Jan Koun and Brian Acton leave FB