> For Messenger, I think differentiation is extremely important and something we haven't focused on yet. We've spent the past 6-12 months catching up to WhatsApp and competitors on table stakes like performance, reliability, pushability, etc. This work isn't done and we will continue to do it, including catching up in areas like groups.
> But to get people to ditch WhatsApp and switch to Messenger, it will never be sufficient to be 10% better than them or add fun gimmicks on any existing attribute or feature. We will have to offer some new fundamental use case that becomes important to people's daily lives.
They never did catch up on table stakes, nor did they discover that new fundamental use case. But they had a good fallback plan: Just buy WhatsUp.
Bummer for the users, though.
I find myself wishing something along the lines of antitrust was enforced more rigorously to help preserve competition.
> But to get people to ditch WhatsApp and switch to Messenger, it will never be sufficient to be 10% better than them or add fun gimmicks on any existing attribute or feature. We will have to offer some new fundamental use case that becomes important to people's daily lives.
They never did catch up on table stakes, nor did they discover that new fundamental use case. But they had a good fallback plan: Just buy WhatsUp.
Bummer for the users, though.
I find myself wishing something along the lines of antitrust was enforced more rigorously to help preserve competition.