@jorge_costanza It would have been true if the stake buy is from Mark directly or one of his other companies. Trying to understand what fit he sees Facebook itself to acquire stake.
@fromgenesistorevelation Good question.
They want to make a "WeChat" kind of super app India.
For which WhatsApp Pay feature is pivotal. Now govt is not giving access to Facebook to launch since they want all the data to be stored in India.
To overcome all this, they had to invest or acquire in an Indian company with the tools and reach. Hence Jio.
@anchorholds18 True. Whatsapp Messaging + Payments + Jio Online Stores will make it a rival to WeChat. Now many businesses have also official Whatsapp accounts & this makes absolute limitless opportunities for Reliance for its online & even offline retail businesses.
Don't tell what is competency of $10 Billion rich man who disrupted mobile network within 4 months. Forced TV channels to live on air for free (Jio Tv) . At that time you would said the same when Airtel an Vodafone were dictating the market and sucking blood of customer for 1 GB of data for ~ INR. 150.
@teremack Thats why google has products across the tech spectrum. If their chat app isnt so popular, it matters little because their mail and search products are #1
@oracle999 Debatable. Their search is only good in certain use cases (they've optimized heavily for search phrases at the cost of words), and their email offering is privacy invading. 10 years from now, I don't see them being dominant in these fields due to the slow decline in quality of their products. In tech circles, I've been seeing people moving away slowly from their offerings. The only reason why some would use them is that it's the best free option, but not the best product.
@oracle999 I see search and email both fragmenting based on the kind of information that one is looking for. There will be search engines that specialize in certain kind of information.
Email will move towards paid for people who can afford it. (Around 20$ per year) . People will pick a provider like how they pick a mobile phone provider. With federation and Chat over IMAP evolving as time passes, email/services built on email will grow more popular.
These is what I see happening 5-10 years out and not anytime soon.
@greenhouse Seriously.. armchair pundits questioning the business decision of a billionaire disrupter across multiple industries. Some people live in delusion throughout their lives just because they cannot let go of their ego
@oracle999 I’m not saying Jio can’t build a chat app. Any random developer can build a chat app.
I’m just saying network effects are hard to break, even for big mover like Jio. Ask Google.
And you never have had any opinions or criticisms on big companies and their operations? Big companies or billionaires are also fallible in areas they are not expert in.
@fromgenesistorevelation From what I know, Jio and Facebook want to develop a mega app like WeChat which would be Chat+MoneyTransferUPI+AJIO+AmazonLikeApp+some more things.
I don’t know if it would be successful or even possible but that was something I heard a few days back.
@fromgenesistorevelation “By bringing together JioMart . . . with the power of WhatsApp, we can enable people to connect with businesses, shop and ultimately purchase products in a seamless mobile experience,” Facebook said.
Whatsapp has had issues getting approval from GOI for starting its payment service. With Ambani's political capital and the synergy (sorry) between Jiomart and Whatsapp as a payment service, connect the dots.