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Why we don't sell ads – WhatsApp Blog

blog.whatsapp.com

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Re: Why we don't sell ads – WhatsApp Blog

#3

>Have you considered the alternative? Yes and they are better. i'm using Hangouts, Telegram and Line... why should I use WhatsApp? These App all have more functionalities and are "free".

It's not "alternative to whatsapp", it's "alternative app monetization strategy".

Re: Why we don't sell ads – WhatsApp Blog

#7
> creates app that leeches your contact list and spam people to o install the app in your name

> post about hating advertising

you can cut the irony/hypocrisy with a knife. what's next? a post about how he loves client interoperability? heh.

Re: Why we don't sell ads – WhatsApp Blog

#9
I do actually find their monetization strategy laudable.

Selling your product to users is, in my view, a far more ethical monetization strategy than selling your users to advertisers, and tends to result in far less potential conflicts of interest.

That said, I also believe communication in general is too important to be left to proprietary software, which is why I won't be using WhatsApp anytime soon.

Re: Why we don't sell ads – WhatsApp Blog

#10

>Have you considered the alternative? Yes and they are better. i'm using Hangouts, Telegram and Line... why should I use WhatsApp? These App all have more functionalities and are "free".

I used to use Google Talk, but I find Hangouts sometimes unreliable. Nowadays I only use Hangouts with my mother (because she doesn't want to switch to other services).

I dislike to use something closed source like Whatsapp, but it's not like Hangouts, Telegram or Line are much better (almost no one I know is connecting to Google's servers with XMPP, and Telegram doesn't have an open source server implementation)

I started to use Telegram recently, thanks to my Ubuntu phone, but I don't like the fact that it's storing the messages unencrypted server-side. Whatsapp is much better on this front, since everything is encrypted by default, and usage across multiple devices (i.e. desktop) is handled wonderfully by the webapp.

OTOH, neither Whatsapp nor Telegram afaik give you any way to verify the identify of the other person, and E2E encryption without identity verification is of dubious utility... TextSecure is nice, but it has only barely more users than Telegram

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