Photo by Tim Bennett on Unsplash

WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum announced that he was leaving Facebook this week amid reports of his long standing disagreement with Mark Zuckerberg over the monetization of his messaging app.

In 2014, Facebook purchased security- and encryption-centric WhatsApp for $19 billion, and since that acquisition has been fighting a battle with Koum for monetization of the app. WhatsApp’s other co-founder, Brian Acton, left Facebook last year for the very same reason, and has been actively recommending users to “Delete Facebook.” Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, long known for it’s ‘appropriation’ of technology through copying or purchase, announced in June 2017 that it would begin the placement of ads on it’s own Messenger platform. Wall Street sees Koum’s departure as a positive, as it heralds the removal of a ‘perceived roadblock’ to ad placement monetization, and Facebook’s stock has risen sharply on the announcement.

Brian Acton’s call to action led to Elon Musk deleting SpaceX’s and Tesla’s Facebook pages.

But privacy and encryption fans are not so enthusiastic. WhatsApp’s 1.5 billion active monthly users will see advertisements in the very near future, now that those pesky internal naysayers are gone. Those ads will be focused by the private conversations of the user, just like Facebook’s Messenger.

But what is the attention of 1.5 billion people worth? What is your personal attention worth? Those 1.5 billion people — most of whom have no idea that their attention is a product that is being packaged for sale at a hefty profit to advertisers — will not be compensated for their time. They will have their private conversations read, albeit by a bot, and scraped for codewords. One person’s discussion about cars, for instance, may generate an ad for a local car dealership. Another’s mention of running shoes may bring about an ad for Addidas. Though it was once unthinkable, Facebook is reading your private messages, and using it to place ads in your view.

It seems George Orwell’s Big Brother is actually Mark Zuckerberg, who enjoys cult-like status at Facebook headquarters.

Big Zuckerberg is watching you… and reading your private messages.

Perhaps the most contentious issue here is that while these users have had an expectation of privacy, they have not actually had privacy at all; the average user has yet to feel the impact of this realization. Thirty years ago, it would have been unthinkable that any organization would be able to read your private messages without a court order; today, we all give away our right to privacy by clicking “agree” at the end of an unreadable Terms of Service.

WhatsApp was founded with an encryption scheme that promised dual-ended, nearly unbreakable encryption that promised privacy to it’s users. Now that Facebook owns WhatsApp, that promise is no longer valid. Facebook has been scraping data from the private conversations of it’s own Messenger App for years; you can download and view the data files on your own account at any time, but you are not allowed to opt out of the harvest without leaving the platform altogether.

Facebook’s Prineville, Oregon Data Center. Cheap power and a remote location were the draw.

Again, what is the attention of 1.5 billion WhatsApp users worth? It is a serious question, and Facebook stands to generate $11+ billion in revenue in 2018 without WhatsApp contributing a dime. None of that will be passed along to the harvestees. There is nothing wrong with making a profit, or with monetization of your efforts, but is it necessary and appropriate to eavesdrop on billions of private conversations to do so?

Enter Kik, and the Kin Foundation, setting the stage for the disruption of this egregious Social Media advertising monetization model. The Kin Ecosystem makes this erosion of privacy a thing of the past; it also rewards all advertisers, developers and those whose attentions are needed, alike. There will be no “scraping” of data from users’ private conversations. This distasteful and ethically dubious procedure is wholly unnecessary to the operation of the Kin Ecosystem.

In the meantime, there is a growing backlash. The calls to#DeleteFacebook have increased significantly, especially since Mark Zuckerberg’s recent testimony before the US Congress exposed the true reach of Facebook’s data grab. Given a choice between a social media model that compensates the user for their attention, and the current one that scrapes data from private conversations, pays the user nothing and generates billions in profit for the platform, which one will the user choose? I believe that the user will choose Kin and be well compensated for his or her attentions. I also believe that developers and other platforms will choose this method as well. Instead of there being a single winner, everyone can participate and benefit financially in the Kin Ecosystem.

As the Facebook drama plays out, watch how Mark Zuckerberg monetizes WhatsApp. Is this the way an inclusive, sharing economy of the future should work? Or is the old, worn out methodology of making the rich even richer by selling the efforts of others, making it’s final throes before extinction? Given a choice, what will the users choose for their own attentions?

To me, that choice is clear. The Kin Ecosystem.