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WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

nytimes.com

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Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#211

Post by Symbiote »

noosphr wrote: post #201
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…

People pick the cheapest flights because price is a simple number they can understand. How to you qualify the comfort of a seat with 20cm of legroom vs 30cm? Until we have a quality metric for flights that's also a single number we can't.

The price is one of the few things that's always available when choosing between flights. Journey time is the other, and people will pay for a shorter journey or shorter layovers.

Strangely, some of my colleagues have 'paid' (work's money, their time) extra to avoid Ryanair, when Ryanair has the only direct connection. This I find strange.

Given the choice, I've long paid a little more if it means an Airbus plane, as I think the cabin is quieter. However, that's rarely shown on flight booking sites.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#212

Post by like_any_other »

robertlagrant wrote: post #42

> When Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, the messaging app had a clear focus. No ads, no games and no gimmicks. This sort of analysis is very surface-level I think. My impression is WhatsApp offered that by running on VC money and had no plan to run an actual business. That's not a question of focus. It's an unsustainable, please monetise me later land grab.

It's called bait-and-switch - lure users in away from (possibly FOSS, e.g. Matrix) competitors, and when you have enough network effects that switching becomes hard, spring the trap.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#213

Post by KoolKat23 »

toast0 wrote: post #96
throw0101c wrote: post #88

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. Depends on the price. I'm guessing lots of folks are paying $1/month to Apple to upgrade from the free 5GB tier of iCloud storage to get to the 50GB tier. WhatsApp charged people $1 per year before being acquired b…

> Supposedly about a billion people paid for that at the time. (I worked for WhatsApp from 2011-2019) From that article, user count was about 900 Million when the fee was ended; user count was about 450 M in Feb 2014 when the acquisition was announced [1]. Either way, it is a mistake to think everyone was paying. A) Some people still had lifetime accounts from when the app was $1 for iPhone, or from the typical late…

If I recall right, WhatsApp tookaway our lifetime subscriptions like a year after buying it, saying it wasn't necessary or something and put everyone all on the same plan.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#215

Post by gruez »

Krasnol wrote: post #209
gruez wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal also claims the same: > We can't read your messages or listen to your calls, and no one else can either. Should we be suspicious of Signal as well?

Sure you should be suspicious. You should always be suspicious. Especially if it's free. And you can do something to calm your suspicions. Like checking out Signlas Open Source code.

>Like checking out Signlas Open Source code.

What's preventing them from serving a backdoored version? xz was open source as well, that didn't stop the backdoor. There might be reproducible builds on android, but you can't even inspect the executable on iOS without jailbreaking.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#216

Post by 1oooqooq »

xp84 wrote: post #83
1oooqooq wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're being too generous, as if people were on whatsbook because of a value they get. they are just there for the captive network effect, which will take a hit the second or becomes a freemium or ad ridden service.

Yeah, nobody uses Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or Google anymore now that they’re “ad-ridden”

none of those are blasting "encryption! only you can read your messages" as their main message and marketing.

those are literal public forums people go to expose themselves. you don't have a very good point.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#217

Post by TingPing »

openplatypus wrote: post #184
Hoasi wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unclear to me how the paid Spotify experience compares with free, but you still get ads with the paid one. Also, you need to curate heavily because Spotify's algorithm will push certain types of content. If you listen to a podcast once, it is hard to get rid of it, as it will keep popping into your feed, or whatever they call their interface.

Omg I literally puke with Shopify ads in podcasts. Whats the point of paid, premium service like Spotify if I keep being served those stupid, dishonest and bordeline illegally deceiving Shopify ads every 15 minutes.

Because the ad has literally nothing to do with Spotify? Podcasters can say or sell whatever.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#218

Post by 486sx33 »

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…

[dead]

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#219

Post by LtWorf »

ElijahLynn wrote: post #129
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…

Paying for YT Premium is a no brainer. Especially for someone like myself with ADHD. I love paying for ad-removal. Take. My. Money.

Everyone else just uses newpipe, mpv, and so on

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#220

Post by qwerpy »

nytesky wrote: post #204
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…

YT Premium is pretty expensive. I think it costs as much for one user for a multi-device plan on Netflix? They don’t create nor curate much content. I am curious about the poster who has learned so much from YouTube — I have tried learning many topics from science to programming to home repairs, and finding a quality program can be very challenging, and there are a lot of programs which are actually elaborate sales p…

There's great content on YouTube but there's a lot of garbage. AI-generated slop, clickbait thumbnails/titles that actually don't payout, sales pitches, and plain old low-quality garbage. The lack of a thumbs down really makes it hard to avoid these. I realize that thumbs down is also used to punish "wrong" political viewpoints and companies, so it's a hard problem. But as a viewer who never uploads content, it only makes my experience worse.
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