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WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

nytimes.com

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Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#141

Post by tehjoker »

LtWorf wrote: post #126
filoleg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have the actual stats, but, sadly, it seems like a gigantic chunk of the “i would rather pay a small fee to use a service rather than paying for it with exposure to ads” crowd is mostly all-talk. And I am saying this as someone who genuinely believes in the “small fee instead of paying with ad exposure” approach. The one specific example of this that made me think so is the Youtube Premium situation. So many…

Amazon prime had a lot of customers but they started to put ads to paying customers as well. So the alternative seems to be "free, with ads" or "paid, with ads"

We could also have public services.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#142

Post by dgfitz »

UnreachableCode wrote: post #110
mschuster91 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t have the actual stats, but, sadly, it seems like a gigantic chunk of the “i would rather pay a small fee to use a service rather than paying for it with exposure to ads” crowd is mostly all-talk. That's because micropayments are still fucking annoying to do on both sides of any transaction: - credit cards: cheap-ish at scale (2-5%), but users don't want to give random apps their CC details and integrating w…

Europe isn't a country. And we have credit cards here.

Wow. Way to flippantly shit on the paragraphs of explanation they gave of their own free time.

Europe though, yeah they’re killing it.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#143

Post by wvh »

filoleg wrote: post #34
mrtksn wrote: post #8

Does anybody have stats on how many people are O.K. paying for their core services, i.e. how many people pay for paid personal e-mail services? I just don't want to believe that our services have to be paid for through proxy by giving huge cut to 3rd parties. The quality goes down both as UX and as core content, our attention span is destroyed, our privacy is violated and our political power is being stolen as conten…

I don’t have the actual stats, but, sadly, it seems like a gigantic chunk of the “i would rather pay a small fee to use a service rather than paying for it with exposure to ads” crowd is mostly all-talk. And I am saying this as someone who genuinely believes in the “small fee instead of paying with ad exposure” approach. The one specific example of this that made me think so is the Youtube Premium situation. So many…

I am conflicted because to some extent, paying for some of these services feels like paying a blackmailer, spying on you, holding a whole ecosystem hostage and even jeopardising mental health and the public discourse.

I pay for email and some other services. Some other services, not so much. I find it hard to support some companies financially because I don't agree with their basic modus operandi. It's not the money; it's who it goes to.

If only we could convince large crowds to choose more free alternatives.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#144

Post by bondarchuk »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #18
andrepd wrote: post #3

Would be nice if these kinds of articles would at least take a paragraph to plug some alternatives, such as Signal.

Discerning people will already seek out other options on their own, the vast majority won't. We know the pattern from the respective Reddit and Twitter enshittification phases.

If I can only message with discerning people might as well not have any messaging app at all.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#145

Post by nkrisc »

filoleg wrote: post #34
mrtksn wrote: post #8

Does anybody have stats on how many people are O.K. paying for their core services, i.e. how many people pay for paid personal e-mail services? I just don't want to believe that our services have to be paid for through proxy by giving huge cut to 3rd parties. The quality goes down both as UX and as core content, our attention span is destroyed, our privacy is violated and our political power is being stolen as conten…

I don’t have the actual stats, but, sadly, it seems like a gigantic chunk of the “i would rather pay a small fee to use a service rather than paying for it with exposure to ads” crowd is mostly all-talk. And I am saying this as someone who genuinely believes in the “small fee instead of paying with ad exposure” approach. The one specific example of this that made me think so is the Youtube Premium situation. So many…

Taking the YouTube example, and many others like it, I only use it because it is free.

If YouTube was subscription only, hypothetically, I would just not use it, and my life would be same as it is now.

There are a great many services that are nice to have, but very few I would bother paying for out of my wallet. Given the choice of paying for them or not using them, I would just walk away from most of them.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#146

Post by jobigoud »

yapyap wrote: post #125
cameldrv wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know lots of people that pay for YT premium. Lots of people pay for Spotify too. I even pay for Kagi.

Spotify I get because the Spotify free experience is HORRID. Youtube is also moving into that direction.

I think a good amount of people pay for Youtube just to be able to listen to audio with the screen off, which is a completely artificial restriction they added to the free version.

Such a strange business model, making the free version below acceptable.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#147

Post by WhyNotHugo »

mrtksn wrote: post #8

Does anybody have stats on how many people are O.K. paying for their core services, i.e. how many people pay for paid personal e-mail services? I just don't want to believe that our services have to be paid for through proxy by giving huge cut to 3rd parties. The quality goes down both as UX and as core content, our attention span is destroyed, our privacy is violated and our political power is being stolen as conten…

I pay a third party to host my email, and wouldn’t mind paying an honest service provider to host something like an XMPP service.

I wouldn’t pay Meta or similar companies for messaging services. And especially not for siloed messaging networks.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#148

Post by x0x0 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #51
filoleg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have the actual stats, but, sadly, it seems like a gigantic chunk of the “i would rather pay a small fee to use a service rather than paying for it with exposure to ads” crowd is mostly all-talk. And I am saying this as someone who genuinely believes in the “small fee instead of paying with ad exposure” approach. The one specific example of this that made me think so is the Youtube Premium situation. So many…

By far the choice of most marginally savvy and above internet users is an ad-model where they themselves ad-block. Which somehow is spun to be morally righteous.

I accidentally browsed a site without ads this morning from my work profile.

Literally on the first link I clicked on on cbs the advertiser somehow figured out how to make my browser redirect to some super-sketchy site saying I was the 5 billionth google search and won blah blah blah.

Browsing without adblock is an unacceptable security risk so long as google et all refuse to audit and comprehensively secure the code they demand to run on my laptop.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#149

Post by baggachipz »

nojvek wrote: post #101

WhatsApp promise to users by it's founders. “No ads! No games! No gimmicks!” I wonder how the early founders feel about what Whatsapp has become with random junk and gimmicks in the UI.

I'm sure their tears are rolling down the mountains of cash they sit upon.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#150

Post by jonplackett »

leokennis wrote: post #7

At least in The Netherlands, WhatsApp could show a 60 second unskippable modal ad video on every launch, and still get away with it due to network effects. If you’re not on WhatsApp, no updates or news from your kids school, your sports team, your family, your car dealership etc. for you.

It’s not like there’s no alternatives.

But tbh if they keep the ads out of messages I don’t see it an affecting people much.

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