Of course they're unattached. It's just another instant messenger. Or are people still loyal to ICQ, AIM, MSN Messenger...?
(Even worse, WhatsApp relies on teenagers. How many social circles endure beyond high school? Do you still IM people you knew back then... or even as recently as two years ago?)
Maybe adults will fall back on the best messenger based on technical merit (probably Hangouts?), but WhatsApp is neither sophisticated nor particularly appealing for the long term. I'll put down money that it'll be forgotten within the decade. What the hell was Facebook thinking?
No, seriously. Everpix DOMINATED WhatsApp on every possible metric: social networks/sharing, user commitment, revenue, advertising information, and long-term potential. Anyone can (and will) switch instant messenger networks on a whim. There's literally no barrier to keep me from telling friends to contact me on Hangouts from now on.
A photo site tells you where people go, what they do, who they hang out with, how they spend their money, and also requires a huge commitment from users since it's a burden to re-upload photo libraries to other sites. Plus they enjoyed a steady revenue stream of $50/year or whatever, AND they could rely on the diminishing cost of storage and bandwidth over time.
To say nothing that Facebook has no photo library feature beyond selected individual uploads (which yield relatively little information about location, habits, friends, etc). They really could have used Everpix. (Or Apple could have finally obtained a usable web service.) But Facebook already has a messenger application. Hell, they have several depending on how you count their properties. What the hell does WhatsApp add to their portfolio, beyond a crappy name and a whimsically unattached user base?
I'm just baffled at this point. I guess $20b for Snapchat will be tomorrow's acquisition. Then $50b for AIM, why not.
Not a Google employee, just a satisfied member. As far as I can tell, these are the following flaws with G+:
1) It's idiotic that my URL must be FirstnameLastname1234.
2) GDrive storage (which I use to upload 2000px G+ photos) is unfortunately expensive when compared to Everpix's unlimited storage. Everpix would have been quite profitable at G+'s scale, too. If Google invested this much in photo enhancement services, why not allow us to pay $50/year for unlimited full-size photo storage?
3) Not enough participation by other people, though it's getting there.
4) I'll never review a Google Play app or Youtube video if I'm forced to publish everything with my real name. They should allow pseudonyms.
Seriously, are there other problems? It provides fantastic value for me in the form of auto-awesome photos and the eventual integration of Google Voice. My profile is completely locked down to outsiders and unifies my Google services under a single identity.
I just don't see what the problem is. At worst, it discourages participation on the Play Store and Youtube. In exchange, I get cool photo stuff and a pretty great social network. There are still improvements to be made, but I don't understand HN's antagonism. Quite frankly, G+ is welcome competition to Facebook. G+ has better design than Facebook, respects my privacy vastly more than Facebook, and provides incredibly valuable photo backup and enhancement.
Even so, Everpix is a tool that literally everyone needs -- organization, deduplication, backup, and daily refreshers of all your photos. I was contemplating buying a subscription for my elderly mother, since she has no idea where her pictures are or how to access them. To say nothing of the rest of my social network.
Maybe I'm still in mourning, but if I ran a VC fund, Everpix seems like a sure investment. You certainly had much more potential for growth -- and steady revenue -- than another Instagram clone or internet radio service. And once your growth eclipsed your fixed costs (which could have been reduced further by running your own servers when you reached an appropriate size), you'd be consistently profitable. And since Everpix provided such a valuable service, your customers would advertise on your behalf.
However, even I discovered Everpix only a few weeks ago, just before The Verge published a write-up about cloud photo backups -- and crowned Everpix the winner. You were just reaching a critical mass of followers... I can't help but think Everpix would have been a wild success if it stuck around for just another year.
If the only problem was scale... how is it even possible that a VC didn't invest? You had a proven product, fanatically loyal customers (including myself), and unbelievable growth potential. Everpix is a textbook case for venture capital.
Even more amazing to me is why someone like Apple didn't purchase Everpix. They're in desperate need of competent web services, and god knows they have the cash. Of all possible futures for Everpix, I could never have seen outright shuttering as a possibility.
I'm a bit annoyed that you conflate racism with Islam. Muslims come from religious and cultural backgrounds which encourage and excuse violence, gang rape, and hysterical fervor over any potential insult. It's fucking terrifying to be a woman in many parts of Europe now, and especially (in fact, almost exclusively) in Muslim neighborhoods.
It's not a matter of hating other races. East Asians and Latinos have assimilated fantastically well with European values of women's rights and non-violence. But North African and Middle Eastern cultures are the worst in the world, and they're taking deep root in Europe thanks to people like you who accuse everyone else of racism and "Islamophobia."
It's the same in Europe. As a visiting American, I'm in awe of the infrastructure they've built -- beautiful, clean, fast, charming -- but these were built with European society in mind, which generally raises kids to be respectful, clean, and polite.
But now there are a ton of pretty awful immigrants from the Middle East who harass women, destroy property, and threaten anyone they dislike... which is quickly making European cities very unpleasant places to live. I wouldn't be surprised if Europeans start their own version of white flight away from their cities.
Agreed on basically all counts. But you're critical because you're spoiled... just visit anywhere in the American Midwest for a week to truly understand how blessed Switzerland is.
Fair enough, but that's not really more liberty. Presumably the police would also arrest a homeless guy screaming about prostitutes if he were in your front lawn in the suburbs.
You'd just like to pay extra to be so far away from everyone that you won't see homeless people. Besides the obvious suggestion of directing the money taxpayers are forced to spend on exurban roads, water pipes, etc. towards asylums, rehab clinics, and shelters... you realize that gentrification means you can have your cake and eat it too, right? Especially in NYC, while there are still tons of bums and Jersey douchebags, the gangster element has all but died off. (Though you still have stupid assholes in the Bronx and Bed-Stuy, gangs aren't the problem you see everywhere else.) Having mixed-income, dense neighborhoods makes policing WAY easier and makes NYC the safest American city.
Is that really a good analogy? Do you really feel that sitting in your car on a freeway is so radically different (and liberating) than sitting in a subway car?
If you're so certain that public transportation means giving something up, what is it that you're losing?
Just because I don't want to spam with the same message, please see my response to Spullera. The argument you're using may be intuitive, but it's very incorrect.
I'm sorry, but that's not how urban design works. We're not forced to develop proportionate to land mass. Your argument is seriously that the existence of the Dakotas prevents us from building decent cities? Are there so many people in Wyoming that we just don't have the population to build decent subways in Seattle?
We're trapped by a car-centric lifestyle, and it's absolutely poisonous.
I'm sorry, but you're associating liberty with cars, and that's just not true. If you live in Nowhere, Indiana, then you're completely dependent on your car to get ANYWHERE, including to buy food, get to work, or see your mother in the hospital. If it breaks down and you can't afford the repair? How free are you to travel now?
You're not completely incorrect, insofar as European cities (and any worthwhile city) are forced to infringe to some extent on fundamentalist interpretations of property rights for urban planning. But you might as well throw up your arms and complain about building codes and zoning restrictions anywhere else if such things are such "onerous restrictions on individual liberty."
The reason why so many Americans have settled in exurban developments is because we've artificially subsidized those lifestyle with federally-funded freeways, artificially cheap gasoline, and destructive corporate attacks on public transportation systems (especially in the 1950s, check out the GM attack in Los Angeles as an example). Exurbs didn't develop organically, nor are they in any way models of efficiency, cost, or sustainability.
I do live in an urban environment (NYC for a decade now), and you're... confused on some counts. Public transportation is radically faster than cars, at least in any city with a fraction of the same population. Have you ever tried to drive through Atlanta or Miami? And living in an urban environment doesn't demand high-rise towers -- walkable townhouses and height-restricted buildings abound, and there's no shortage of human-friendly neighborhoods in New York. (I also hate midtown Manhattan, but that's nowhere near representative of city living.)
If you absolutely need a car for big purchases, Zipcar and its competitors are easily accessible. If you're older, you have BETTER options here in the form of delivery services than you'd have in a rural setting. If you'd like to get a little further away from the city in a nice, quiet Queens neighborhood, you can hope on the express train and read a book while you're zipped to your destination.
Hong Kong is a different animal just because it's, well, Hong Kong. But nothing in the world quite compares to that, and you really shouldn't associate New York or Paris with that crazy city.
That's not actually true. The US is 3,794,101 sq mi. Europe is 3,930,520 sq miles
However, Europe is almost entirely concentrated in walkable, urban areas -- even beyond the major cities, small towns are accessible by train, navigable by foot, and have excellent support in the form of public transportation. If people do have "cars," they tend to be tiny or Vespas.
There's no reason we can't have the same system here, except that we absolutely suck at infrastructure investment. It's really not that hard to build an urban environment, and it's overwhelmingly popular with people who can afford it. The exurbs of Las Vegas and Miami are completely worthless, and will be even more so in a future with higher fuel costs, water scarcity, and resettlement in urban environments.
Agreed with you and MJN. The US is in desperate need of investment in public transportation. Europeans have absolutely mastered the art of urban design and public transportation, and I wish we'd learn from their example.
But try telling 99% of the US that 1) their shitty sprawled real estate is effectively worthless, 2) their obese asses will have to give up their cars, and 3) we've spent 70 years of infrastructure investment supporting the dumbest possible lifestyle choice.
I also love San Francisco, but you have the wrong target in mind. Urban density is GOOD. What sucks is a car-centric culture that forces sprawl.
You want a NYC or European-style transportation system, where it's completely unnecessary to own dangerous, unreliable, expensive automobiles. Cities designed around walking -- like the good parts of San Francisco -- are WAY more human-friendly and memorable. I guarantee that whatever parts of San Francisco you love, they're almost definitely not parts you're forced to drive to.
(Even worse, WhatsApp relies on teenagers. How many social circles endure beyond high school? Do you still IM people you knew back then... or even as recently as two years ago?)
Maybe adults will fall back on the best messenger based on technical merit (probably Hangouts?), but WhatsApp is neither sophisticated nor particularly appealing for the long term. I'll put down money that it'll be forgotten within the decade. What the hell was Facebook thinking?