
WhatsApp co-founder accuses Facebook of trading privacy for revenue - uladzislau
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6812853/WhatsApp-founder-warns-world-delete-Facebook-immediately.html
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kemyd
I remember his words from an interview "I sold the privacy of my users for a
huge profit. I made a decision that compromised my principles, and I must live
with that every day."

This guy should have his own character in the next season of Silicon Valley
series.

Give your billions to the poor and move on you poor guy

~~~
iKevinShah
> Give your billions to the poor and move on you poor guy

How exactly is gonna help the people and the guy?

It's not that people are not gonna be tracked by tech giants after he donates
his billions or something.

~~~
brador
He could invest the billions into making viable alternatives that respect user
privacy.

~~~
seba_dos1
As Conversations showed in the XMPP land, just a single full-time developer
paid from his work on the client can make a huge difference. The foundations
are strong (XMPP and Matrix), what you need now is some resources. XSF is
notoriously understaffed.

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laurynas-s
With the proposed 1$/yr/user it is going to take around 19 years to become
profitable (with 1bn paid users). Facebook obviously wants a return earlier.

The founder did take those billions, so not sure what he was expecting to
happen, ads looks like the only business model to turn profit quickly in this
sort of business.

Besides, there are so many people using WhatsApp in developing countries that
wouldn't pay if they can get something similar for free and competition in
chat apps is big.

~~~
dtech
I never understand why ads and subscription fee needs to be an exclusive or
for how the big players monetize.

I'd happily give Google $5/month for Gmail, $10/month for YouTube (I already
do), $10/month for google search etc or $40/month for their complete package
if they remove ads and respect privacy then. It's less than other "semi-
essential" services I have to use like my ISP or car and if they make more
than that of me from advertisements the advertising/marketing market must be
bonkers.

~~~
hgjwq
If you can afford $40/month to use Google, then they can make much more than
that simply showing you ads.

~~~
dtech
You hear that sometimes but I don't buy it. If that was the case than 1st
class in an airline would be plastered with ads, but it isn't.

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ddebernardy
Better article on the same topic from 3 days ago:

[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/whatsapp-
brian-...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/whatsapp-brian-acton-
delete-facebook-stanford-lecture)

------
cuddlecake
I just want to say, if I were in his position, I would also trade my company
for sweet millions of dollars.

But at least I would not constantly call out the people I sold it to, as if my
words had any meaning at that point.

Also, it's frustrating to me, to see how it's seemingly impossible to care
about the users AND have enough users bringing in revenue at the same time so
that you are never in a position where big companies try to blackmail you with
sweetsane amounts of money into giving them access to data.

Edit: After reading the responses, I must correct myself. The turmoil within
the human soul is much more nuanced, rendering "stop flame, whin0r" an
inadequate response. The only thing I know is that I'd probably have done the
same, as I reckon most would have.

~~~
derefr
I see nothing hypocritical about good people taking payment from evil people.
“Payment” means that the resources of the payer go down, and the resources of
the payee go up. Now Facebook have less money that they can use to influence
the world in stupid/evil ways, and the WhatsApp founders have _more_ money
they can use to influence the world in _good_ ways.

And, in exchange, since Facebook now owns the _service_ of WhatsApp, they have
the adopted duty of popularizing it—a service that inherently resists the kind
of centralized analytical approaches Facebook uses to make money, and steals
users away from Facebook in ways that makes it harder for Facebook to track
those same isers. Win/win for the WhatsApp founders’ perspective; lose/lose
from Facebook’s perspective. It’s a wonder they went for it. (It’s sort of
like if Google were to acquire Brave: all they’d get is a browser that steals
Chrome users and inherently prevents Google from tracking them, that nobody
would accept if it was turned into not-that, because that’s its whole
_thing_.)

~~~
Zanni
It really doesn't though. Facebook paid for WhatsApp because it was worth
_more_ to them than money. Their resources and influence have _increased_.

~~~
ves
So they believe.

------
walrus01
The irony of this being published on _The Daily Mail_ , one of the English
language publishing world's absolute shoddiest sensationalist tabloids.

~~~
ddebernardy
It's not. This is just a reblog without attribution of news that had been
circulating for 3 days now. The Stanford event where he said that appears to
have occurred on Wednesday.

[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/whatsapp-
brian-...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/whatsapp-brian-acton-
delete-facebook-stanford-lecture)

------
notacoward
This is how most people resolve cognitive dissonance. He wants the money _and_
a clear conscience about the decision that brought it. The only way he can
have both is if he'd been tricked, so even though that's not what happened
that's the narrative he prefers. What he probably doesn't realize yet is that
he has just created a new counterpoint to his perception of himself as an
honest and ethical person. The cycle will continue until he learns to take
responsibility for the moral consequences of his own actions. I wish him the
best of luck on that journey.

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tannhaeuser
Should be pretty concerning coming from an insider. Now could we _finally_
campaign for public authorities and eg. German state TV broadcasters (ZDF) to
#deletefacebook?

~~~
erikpukinskis
You want public authorities to delete their Facebook accounts?

------
jaabe
I installed signal, only three of my contacts use it. One is a journalist, one
is an artist/designer who does a lot in the crypto space and the last is a
fellow enterprise architect. The first two are also active WhatsApp users.

I’m as concerned about Facebook as everyone else, but you can’t seem to get
around the fact that it’s the modern yellow pages. It’s the only platform,l
everyone has, and it’s just incredible hard to get around that.

~~~
on_and_off
I tried Signal but I was disappointed by its UX.

It is not horrible, but a bit below the other messaging apps I have been
using.

Which is an issue : hard to push my non techies relatives to move to something
that they will find harder to use.

I have one contact on Signal btw.

~~~
akvadrako
The UX problem could be solved if there was enough users to make it worth the
trouble.

Personally, I only use Signal regularly, so I've convinced most of my friends
to use it too. But only for talking to me I suspect.

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baxtr
Interesting article. But there is no real reason why to leave Facebook. I get
the whole privacy thing but that’s nothing new, is it?

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Zombiethrowaway
The minute you take investors money, whether seed, convertible debt, series A,
then you are not the only boss anymore. You KNOW you will not be able to be
independant and stick it to the man.

That's a very important decision, very early. And once you make it, you can't
change it.

The decision to agree to sell to FB was made when they took their first seed
money.

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jmsflknr
Earlier discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19385516](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19385516)

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spinach
A product that is 'free' for it's users from a company that wants to be
extremely profitable seems to be a fundamentally flawed business plan.

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banachtarski
I'm sure the hivemind will downvote this to oblivion but when I see this sort
of thing, my gut reaction is that the communication is so dramatic and such an
attention grab... As an aside, given the actual events that led up to FB
getting the negative limelight, it seems like the ire IMO be directed at the
transmission of propaganda/lies via ads, not privacy.

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ykevinator
Vanity platform users get what they deserve.

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rock_hard
The people who take money just to then talk shit about the people whom their
got their money from...that’s really the lowest class of human being. I mean
would you want to work with such person?

~~~
ggm
But what if he is right?

~~~
rock_hard
Then why not return the money or burn it in public protest?

If I would feel like him I would not want that money...I would want to put
some weight behind my critism...

