Yeah ... but a huge fraction of Whatsapp users (in India & Africa especially) use $100 (or less) phones....
I'm not suggested that people in poorer economies should be deprived of targeted advertising. It's just surprising they wield such influence. I guess they make it up in volume.
Not being able to afford and not being willing to pay are separate.
That's a big if, though. I wouldn't pay $1/year for WhatsApp messaging as a consumer. But I have a lot of disposable income. When you have a free substitute, these signals get mixed up.
I live in South Africa and I'd pay $50 a year. Throw in a few paid-only features and I'd be quite happy.
All my friends use it. We use it at work for many teams. Video call with family in Australia. Audio with friends in Toronto or Chicago via Bluetooth while driving. That feels like magic. Better quality audio then the cellphone network and just works.
I have Skype, messenger, telegram, had Viber, tried WeChat. Barely use any. WhatsApp is like SMS, focused on my phone contacts, but has groups, audio, video, photos. That's all I want.
Here's an article discussing a local cell data bundle. It's still $1-3 per month. Poor people are willing to pay that because of the better value compared to SMS and voice call costs.
https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/technology/mtn-hikes-u...
They're planning for the future. Those people will be the major consumers of the world. The companies that can gain market share in emerging economies now will reap the rewards.
https://ec.europa.eu/knowledge4policy/sites/know4pol/files/o...
It may sound cruel, but is it crueler than saying "Since you can't afford to pay, just give us access to your emails and private messages"?
It really is more cruel to say that because you, in a first world country, can pay 1 dollar much easier than they can pay 1 dollar, you should decide that they're not allowed to pay with their data if they desire.
We're talking mind-boggling levels of poverty. How are they able to even pay for a phone and mobile subscription? Where do they live? How do they eat?
It sounds to me like a made-up sad story used as an excuse for rich corporations. If there are people that poor out there, Facebook could charge the rest of the world while offering the service for free to those that really can't afford it.
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.
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?
You don't see them telling the FB Messenger team: "Hey, you need to make money."
WhatsApp was acquired February 2014 and end-to-end encrypted April 2016.
> And I am 100% confident that is why they want to find a way to monetize it directly. Not having access to data is not something they are used to.
I agree.
> You don't see them telling the FB Messenger team: "Hey, you need to make money."
I mean, I'm sure they have. Messenger has ads.
Facebook has a different business model and a different mission than those companies.