TECHNOLOGY

Farhad and Mike’s Week in Tech: The Chatter on Messaging Apps

By FARHAD MANJOO and MIKE ISAACJAN. 23, 2016

Ujjwal Kohli, left, with his sister, Uttkarsha, says he spends about four hours a day online, using things like WhatsApp and Facebook. CreditPoulomi Basu for The New York Times

Each Saturday, Farhad Manjoo and Mike Isaac, technology reporters at The New York Times, review the week’s news, offering analysis and maybe a joke or two about the most important developments in the tech industry.

Mike: Greetings, Farhad! I write to you from New York, also known as the ice planet Hoth. I am two steps shy of cutting open and climbing inside the body of a Tauntaun for warmth.

Farhad: I’m constantly amazed by how big a nerd you are.

Mike: Well, I’m a relatively new New Yorker, so I still get to complain about the weather. Also, I enjoy Star Wars analogies.

So let’s get to it. A whole lot of nothing technology-related happened in the world this week. Instead, a lot of it was finance-related: Global markets are in turmoil, which has taken the stock prices of many tech companies on quite a roller-coaster ride. Pour one out for the wealth managers of various Twitter and Square employees.

Oracle is airing all sorts of Google trade secrets in a protracted court battle — stuff that would be interesting to business and finance nerds like you and me. Twitter went down for a few hours, and everyone on social media lost their minds. Fortunately, they could still write about themselves on Peach.

Oh, and Uber is testing its helicopter service at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. Because nothing says “saviors of the middle class” like providing people with their own private chopper.

Farhad: I’m looking forward to this trend. Once last year, I rode a chopper from Manhattan to La Guardia using the helicopter app Blade. This was for a story, mind you — I’m not part of the 1 percent! But it was a totally cool way to travel, and I can’t wait for self-flying choppers to make this a mainstream reality.

Mike: O.K., Richie Rich. I want to talk about WhatsApp, one of the world’s most popular yet horribly named messaging apps. Facebook paid roughly $19 billion for the app in 2014, and it’s grown exponentially since; WhatsApp boasts more than 900 million regular users worldwide.

This week, the company announced that it was dropping its $1 annual subscription fee, making the app free for everyone. Jan Koum, co-founder and chief executive of WhatsApp, is a well-known antagonist of traditional advertising — you know, the kind that Facebook hosts all over the place — and wanted to try a subscription model. My guess is that it didn’t work, for whatever reason, and that they’ll start charging businesses to connect with WhatsApp users.

I think it’s smart! But tell me your take on the decision — and on what the popularity of WhatsApp means in general — while I pretend to listen.

Farhad: I was always skeptical of WhatsApp’s subscription model. It offered little upside — $1 a year for a billion users is a good income for you and me, but pocket change for Silicon Valley giants — with a huge potential downside. Sure, WhatsApp is growing fast now, but the messaging market is chaotic, and there’s always a new app vying for kids’ attention. WhatsApp’s $1 fee, although tiny, could have given users a reason to try some other thing.

The new plan seems much smarter, and it’s riding the crest of a larger trend: People love messaging so much that they may be willing to do a whole bunch of things from inside their messaging apps — buy stuff, book stuff, talk to customer service people and just generally engage in that great American pastime we call commercial activity. The benefit to WhatsApp (and Facebook’s other messaging app, Messenger) is obvious; the company takes a cut of transactions and potentially makes billions.

It’s also good for developers. App stores are overstuffed, and getting people to download your app and use it requires a lot of marketing dollars and some luck. So if you want people to use your shopping or delivery or ride service, make it compatible with messaging — there’s less competition there, and it doesn’t require that users download new apps.

Do you agree? Are chat-based services the next big thing?

Mike: O.K., this is weird. I agree with you for the second time in a month. I should probably see a doctor.

Here’s the thing: The lowest common denominator across the world, as far as communication goes, is messaging apps. They offer low-cost data transmission. They require only basic writing, which nearly everyone does daily. Texting, particularly among millennials, is more popular than talking on the phone. I know I often would rather text someone than take a call.

Farhad: I’d rather text anyone than take your call. Oh, snap.

Mike: Mean! Anyway, why not apply that interface to all sorts of other use cases? Can I deal with a customer service person via text when my Internet goes down in Brooklyn? It seems a whole lot more bearable than waiting on hold listening to old John Tesh tracks.

We already see this in other services, albeit in nascent forms. You know by now that Twitter is the social network of choice for directing obscenities at airlines when a flight is delayed. And Facebook Messenger is dabbling in the “chat for business” concept as well.

Anyway, I am on board with the notion that chat and text will be the interface of the future. Or at least the predominant one for some time ahead.

Here’s a question I have: At what point do Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp end up on a collision course? Aren’t they essentially doing the same thing for the company?

Farhad: Sure, they’re very similar, but maybe that doesn’t matter. I think Mark Zuckerberg’s big idea is that social networks that are only slightly different can be hugely popular among different audiences. In other words, both Messenger and WhatsApp could be very big, and Facebook would make money on both.

But a future of many chat apps will be a terrible inconvenience for me — there’ll be so many places to block you!

Mike: Thank god for the wonders of innovation. Chat you soon!