WhatsApp introduces ads in its app • Hacker News Board

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#191

Post by nemomarx » Mon, Jun 16, 2025, 9:45 PM UTC

schroeding wrote: post #178

basisword wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I, as the “computer guy”, had friends and family asking how to pirate it. To be fair, that was in era when pirating was such a normal thing. Everybody at least knew about it. Cheap pirated DVD's were super common (I received them as gifts even) and everyone knew someone selling them. With people accustomed to paying for Netflix, music streaming, Office 365, etc. maybe a subscription version of WhatsApp would be mo…

Interestingly, the pendulum at least in my friend group starts to kinda swing in the other direction, i.e. non-technical friends start to indirectly ask (me as the tech guy) about blatant piracy for (visual, Spotify is still very much accepted) media and (TOS-violating[1]) ad blockers for ad-supported streaming. I cannot overstate how unexpected this was and is to me, we talk about people in their mid-twenties with j…

Number of competing video services with distinct libraries has kinda put it back in vogue, I think. No one I've ever talked to is really happy about paying for more than 1-2 streaming services, especially if some of them only have one show they're interested in. If that show is really tempting it becomes tempting to just pirate Severance or what have you instead of signing up to one new service for it on top of Netflix et al.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#192

Post by michaelt » Mon, Jun 16, 2025, 9:46 PM UTC

timewizard wrote: post #153

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…

> crowd is mostly all-talk. I want to pay the small fee, through a simple to use portal, that makes it obvious how to cancel, and if I'm being obligated to a multi month term or not. I also want my payment card details to be perfectly secure and for none of my private information or usage to be sold to third parties. > who actually pays for YT Premium. Have you ever asked them "why don't you?" Or "what would it take…

Good news: Youtube Premium is trivial to cancel, comes with no multi-month obligations, and if you don't trust Google with your credit card you can pay for it with Google Play gift cards.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#193

Post by ignoramous » Mon, Jun 16, 2025, 9:48 PM UTC

Xenoamorphous wrote: post #131

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 remember when Whatsapp became a paid app, I can’t remember the details as I believe they varied by platform (iOS vs Android) but it was either €0.79 or €0.99, I’m not sure if one off or yearly payment, but it doesn’t matter. I, as the “computer guy”, had friends and family asking how to pirate it. This is coming from SMS costing €0.25 per message (text only!) and also coming from people who would gladly pay €3 for…

> ... Whatsapp became a paid app ... it was either €0.79 or €0.99, I’m not sure if one off or yearly payment, but it doesn’t matter ...

Interestingly, WhatsApp put up paid plans to slow down user acquisition [0].

On Androids, in some countries, WhatsApp continued to work even if you didn't pay the $1/year fee.

[0] https://youtu.be/8-pJa11YvCs?t=952

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#194

Post by Guest9081239812 » Mon, Jun 16, 2025, 9:50 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #151

Guest9081239812 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My site has about 30k active registered users a day. The vast majority are long term members that have been on the site for years, so they're quite dedicated to the service. Even so, only about 50 of them pay to remove advertising.

How much do you make per user on ads, and how much is the subscription?

It only generates about 15k a year in ad revenue. It's fairly low revenue because:

1. Users are spread around the world. This isn't a site with 70% US visitors.

2. The majority of users run ad block, and this continues to rise.

3. Ad rates plummet each year. I earn about 5x less on the site now, than in the past, with the same number of active users, and 3x as many advertisements.

I've tried all the major advertising networks. I setup header bidding and signed direct deals with large networks, such as AppNexus, Amazon, Yahoo, AOL, etc. At the end of the day, ads do not pay well for my audience.

Users can pay $3/mo to remove advertising. Yes, I'm aware that's $36/yr, when the average registered user is generating less than $0.50/yr in ad revenue. About 30% of paying users choose to pay higher than $3/mo for no additional benefit (they can pay any amount they wish). I also have some individuals that have paid thousands of dollars.

What would happen if I offered a $1/yr plan for an ad free experience, so it's more inline with ad revenues? I honestly don't know, but I would guess I would lose a few of the $3/mo paying users, and gain less than 100 users paying $1/yr, so it would likely be net negative.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#195

Post by arch_deluxe » Mon, Jun 16, 2025, 9:53 PM UTC

This seems like a good time to mention that FreeFollow.org is looking for private beta testers for our app that combines the pub/sub model and slick UX of social media (posts, comments, following) with the economic model of webhosting (pay to host a group, not to participate in them) and the E2EE design of 1Password (but using OPAQUE which is actually the protocol used by WhatsApp, rather than SRP).

Our initial use case -- why we're building this -- is parents who are currently using text groups in Apple Messages or WhatsApp to share photos/videos of their kiddos with friends/family and want something less interruptive and more casual, but for whom social media is so toxic and untrusted as to be a non-starter.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#196

Post by xandrius » Mon, Jun 16, 2025, 9:54 PM UTC

bsoles wrote: post #173

Xenoamorphous wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when Whatsapp became a paid app, I can’t remember the details as I believe they varied by platform (iOS vs Android) but it was either €0.79 or €0.99, I’m not sure if one off or yearly payment, but it doesn’t matter. I, as the “computer guy”, had friends and family asking how to pirate it. This is coming from SMS costing €0.25 per message (text only!) and also coming from people who would gladly pay €3 for…

The problem with paying a small fee for a service is not the fee itself. It is the friction for paying for the service and the hassle that comes after the payment. Now the credit card company knows what service I am buying; I would get endless marketing emails from the service for buying additional things; my info as a person willing to pay for such a service would get sold to other companies; my credit card info wou…

I really don't buy that the reason is the "tracking".

It's the friction of paying for something at all. There is no free sandwich, so people don't generally expect it, on the other hand there's plenty of free software.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#197

Post by djtango » Mon, Jun 16, 2025, 9:56 PM UTC

stonogo wrote: post #133

Kwpolska wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except not limited to 160 characters (70 if you want Unicode) and with rich media capabilities.

So... MMS, then?

Why did MMS feel so janky back in the day?

Was it a client thing or a protocol thing?

Whatsapp felt so responsive back in the day. I'd be pinging my family in real time halfway across the globe on mobile in 2009. For Free. That was a killer app...

Why did MMS fail where Whatsapp succeeded?

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#198

Post by danillonunes » Mon, Jun 16, 2025, 9:57 PM UTC

halfcat wrote: post #168

nkrisc wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On the flip side, I’ll pay $10/month for 10 streaming services I never use (and have forgotten about), but on a Saturday night if a movie isn’t available and I have to pay $3.99 to rent it I never pay that. Instead I’ll drive to the corner store and spend $20 on snacks, and come home and watch YouTube with ads. People are curious creatures indeed.

I paid like $2 to rent a movie about three years ago and didn't watched it entirely and boy it still hurts.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#199

Post by card_zero » Mon, Jun 16, 2025, 9:59 PM UTC

johncessna wrote: post #132

Workaccount2 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Morally Righteous? I think it's more they don't have to so they don't. It's like the DVR days where you'd just fast forward ads. It wasn't a moral high ground, it was just easy to do and was better than the alternative.

Dutifully watching the ads doesn't seem moral either, it seems insane.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#200

Post by JumpCrisscross » Mon, Jun 16, 2025, 9:59 PM UTC

sdeframond wrote: post #188

yibg wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar situation as flights. People complain about lack of space, misc fees etc. But when it comes down to it, people for the most part, still pick the cheapest flight. I think the other factor is a bit of anchoring. I know this impacts me anyways. If there is a "free" alternative, then that's where I'm anchored at. I can watch youtube for free so paying for it seems like a bad deal. Where as there is no free altern…

> when it comes down to it, people for the most part, still pick the cheapest flight. Flight comparators don't show "avaliable legroom" in their metrics. As far as I know some companies charge more for seats near entrances where there's more space, so people are willing to pay more.

> As far as I know some companies charge more for seats near entrances where there's more space, so people are willing to pay more

In my anecdotal experience, the people complaining about leg room are precisely those who are not paying for additional leg room. (Similar to how people who compare modern air travel with service in the 1960s aren't purchasing the inflation-adjusted equivalent ticket, which would almost always be a lay-flat seat today if not Wheels Up.)