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Remember when WhatsApp required a subscription? One of the first changes made by Facebook after purchasing WhatsApp was to make it available for free. And now they're complaining they can't milk it enough? Oh dear. I know that a percentage of WhatsApp users would stop using the app if they started requiring a payment again –because apparently paying $1 per year for using an application on your $999 phone is outrageou…
Was it a subscription? I thought it was $1 to purchase(iOS).
Aside from Signal and Telegram, is there any worthy alternative?
That depends on what it is you don't like about those two. I presume phone number identification and non-standard encryption?
Almost everybody I know has at least 2 messaging apps installed on their phone. What's to stop people start migrating to Signal/Telegram/Viber/Keybase/etc.. once WhatsApp starts displaying ads?
My anecdote - out of, say, 50 people I know, two have Telegram. The rest use a combination of iMessage, Facebook messenger, and WhatsApp.
22yo male.
Aside from Signal and Telegram, is there any worthy alternative?
I've just defaulted back to iMessage for pretty much everything - not an ideal option if you don't mostly talk to people with Apple devices though.
Almost everybody I know has at least 2 messaging apps installed on their phone. What's to stop people start migrating to Signal/Telegram/Viber/Keybase/etc.. once WhatsApp starts displaying ads?
Almost everybody I know has at least 2 messaging apps installed on their phone. What's to stop people start migrating to Signal/Telegram/Viber/Keybase/etc.. once WhatsApp starts displaying ads?
Network effect. My anecdote - out of, say, 50 people I know, two have Telegram. The rest use a combination of iMessage, Facebook messenger, and WhatsApp. 22yo male.
(So: like what the internet used to be like in olden times. But still.)
Aside from Signal and Telegram, is there any worthy alternative?
E-mail. It's pretty amazing.
But it's not an option for the fast-pace, short-text, short-lived communication, thread style conversations. No, Gmail lock-in is not an option.
"Messaging service WhatsApp, which has a user base of roughly 1.5 billion, is set to start showing ads in its Status feature next year" Well, monetize through ads is something expected in any free platform that does not belong to a non-profit organization. It's just a matter of time and implementation. Here in Mexico WhatsApp is huge, even as a default B2C channel for a lot of small businesses.
You could also, you know, charge money for the service.
Almost everybody I know has at least 2 messaging apps installed on their phone. What's to stop people start migrating to Signal/Telegram/Viber/Keybase/etc.. once WhatsApp starts displaying ads?
the network.