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WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

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Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#221

Post by mac-mc »

scrivanodev wrote: post #163
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.

What would you replace YouTube with? To my its educational value is unmatched. I owe so much of my learning to it.

IMO if youtube was an actual paid service, I would also expect a lot of the advertiser driven demonitization actions to go away when your in paid mode, but it isn't so I still miss out on a lot of potentially interesting topics or things that could be talked about, but are not, due to the chilling effects of the demonitization & deboosting police.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#222

Post by qwerpy »

Hoasi wrote: post #159
yapyap wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

I rage quit my Spotify subscription after my first "sponsored" in the mobile app. Some people may tolerate ads in their paid subscriptions but many of us won't.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#223

Post by skeeter2020 »

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.

Google flights does - at least as well as they can base don the airline and plane. They'll also compare this to the average. All airlines charge more for exit rows and their extra legroom, typically as "premium economy" seats.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#224

Post by tumsfestival »

carlosjobim wrote: post #65
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…

Most people go absolutely mentally deranged by a simple magical incantation. The powerful incantation or spell consists of only one word: "Free". That word will make people loose their mind and their soul. It will make people accept anything and everything that they would never otherwise accept. They will line up for hours, they will accept hostile and toxic messages being screamed into their faces, they will humilia…

Well, that is what happens when everything costs money and most people are just trying to get by on a daily basis, making cuts everywhere just to pay their bills, not everyone has a nice disposable income to throw away at apps. That people prefer ads over paying yet another subscription is a symptom of unchecked capitalism and the inequality that comes with it.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#225

Post by tomsmeding »

nsagent wrote: post #175
Funes- wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should've made sure of how Signal works with regards to chat history before you removed the app from the old phone.

I have Signal on my phone and laptop. For some reason my laptop desynced from the phone, so my chat history now has a missing block of message history (that exists on the phone). I did nothing obvious to cause that desync. My guess is that my phone updated the Signal app, and I didn't update it on the laptop in lockstep. That's not a great UX, especially since there is no notification that this might happen.

Desync happens simply after a month of not using the PC client. Yes, it's that short.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#226

Post by standardUser »

paxys wrote: post #62
laurent123456 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always network effect will be the problem. I know plenty of people on WhatsApp and almost nobody on Signal

Network effects aren't a big deal when it comes to messaging. There was a time when people thought iPhone wouldn't be able to overcome Blackberry because everyone was on BBM. In the last couple decades we've seen people go from ICQ to AIM/Yahoo/MSN to Google Talk to Skype to Facebook Messenger to BBM to Whatsapp/iMessage/Instagram, with dozens of smaller options like Kik, Viber, Line, Signal, Telegram all hanging aro…

That sounds nice, but in reality most of my extended friend group has migrated to WhatsApp over the last 10 years and is unlikely to change anytime soon. Interoperability would be nice (like we used to have) but that will never happen until Apple stops using their lack of interoperability as a way to ostracize young people and sell more phones.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#227

Post by skeeter2020 »

Aerbil313 wrote: post #208

Today is the day the notion of the 'internet is free, good and a convenience' is over for the global public. WhatsApp was the first ever primary convenience brought by the advent of the internet - it fulfilled a legitimate need all over the world by providing essentially free, limitless, boundless communication if you had few megabytes of internet in your mobile quota. It is to this day the #1 most used app for a goo…

>> WhatsApp was the first ever primary convenience brought by the advent of the internet

Unique but I believe fundamentally incorrect take on the Internet...

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#228

Post by rconti »

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 was just thinking about this the other day -- hotels so badly want me to book directly with them instead of using, say Booking.com.

But then to book directly and get the "guaranteed cheapest!" price, I have to sort through even more options than on an aggregator, I have to create an account, and now I'm getting spammed from ANOTHER entity I never plan to do business with again. At least with the aggregators I have one company whose privacy settings I've already dealt with.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#229

Post by standardUser »

tiluha wrote: post #33
stevage wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find there is much network effect for one on one messaging. I have to use a few different apps to talk to all my friends, it's not a big deal to switch to/from Signal or Whatsapp. With groups it's more effort.

This does not match my experience in Germany. If somebody gives you their phone number it is just expected that you can reach them on WhatsApp and i have yet to meet anyone that doesn't use WhatsApp.

That seems true throughout the most of the Western world, excluding the US. I have a big WhatsApp network, but that's by virtue of living in SF and NY. Without big immigrant/expat/world-traveler communities, I think most of the US just uses iMessage or regular text.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#230

Post by rconti »

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'm about to start paying for YouTube for the first time ever. Of course, they make it complicated because I don't actually want their bundled music service. And the "lite" version says most videos are ad-free. But what's preventing them from changing that deal the day after I sign up? And of course, once I become a customer, now I'm hooked, and I'm subject to their arbitrary price increases.

Of course, as a "free" customer I'm already subject to their whims whenever they decide to add another advertising layer.

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