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Whatsapp Will Become Free, Companies Can Pay To Reach Users (nytimes.com)
speedplane writes: The popular messaging service Whatsapp will soon become free (they previously charged $0.99 per year after the first). The troubling news is that to compensate for the lost revenue, companies will now be able to pay to contact users directly. "[Whatsapp founder] Mr. Koum said that his team was still experimenting with how such services could work, and that many companies were already using the messaging service, particularly in developing countries, to connect with mobile-savvy customers." If this smells like advertising, Whatsapp vehemently disagrees. A portion of their statement reads: "...people might wonder how we plan to keep WhatsApp running without subscription fees and if today's announcement means we're introducing third-party ads. The answer is no."
There are a few startups which I think have succeeded in actually improving the situation compared to before. Take github for example. It bases on an open standard (git), and its reachable with a web browser. Together with the fact that it doesn't really require any data from you when setting up an account, unlike facebook or google, and that its ad-free, its in fact a real improvement over sourceforge.net (sorry dice) with svn. Yes, part of the improvement is linus' fault (git), but still github has done alot in order to improve and simplify user experience, compared to sf.net. That combined with the different business model gives a better product for open source software, and a great product for closed source software as well (where sf.net has no offerings afaik).
Stackoverflow is similar. Its greatest achievement is in my eyes to replace phpbb and its friends with forum software that puts the best and working answer into the foreground, eliminating spam that would (like the "me too or thanks" stuff) make it harder to find the answer. Yes, many people see it as the temple of cargo cult programming, and the community is great but still large parts of it seem to like boost, but it is a real actual help with common problems with software, and many smart people like Mark Adler answer questions there, their answers being smart as well. Its basically a community maintained FAQ page.
But whatsapp is an example of worsening the situation. It replaces an open (SMS/xmpp/e-mail) protocol by something proprietary. Also, its actively tried to stop the spread of alternative implementations, that connect to their service. If a company maintains such a close control of their product, it can abuse it in the future much easier, because the open environment around it has a much harder time spawning a fork.
Both stackoverflow and github have found ways how to make money without fucking their users, and controlling their product tightly, and they live great from the money. And the cool thing is that they already serve as source of inspiration for people who make similarly great products (take travis CI for example), and stackoverflow is actively trying to get out of the "developer" niche, I hope they will be successful and become a reference in non-technical fields as well.