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WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

nytimes.com

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Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#241

Post by cherryteastain »

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…

On the other hand, I did pay the $1 for Whatsapp back in the day and I was promised it'd be ad free. Want that $1 back, I actually even deleted my account and uninstalled Whatsapp!

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#242

Post by dieortin »

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…

> When we did build payment enforcement, I think we only set it on for Spain and maybe the US.

Can I ask why Spain specifically?

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#243

Post by ab_testing »

rconti wrote: post #228
bsoles wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I book with hotels directly almost all the time and never receive marketing spam just regular mail about my upcoming start. Also booking with the hotel lets me select options not available on booking sites like king vs 2 queen bed options, ADA compliant rooms and even floor options. Also if you have AAA or some other memberships, those codes can easily beat discount sites like Booking.com

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#244

Post by bobthepanda »

makeitdouble wrote: post #202
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…

> people would never pay for software. I mostly share your conclusion, but I think there is a specific twist: most people will pay for on the spot transactions. We see it in spades for games: in-app purchases and season passes have a lower barrier of acceptance. I assume buying stones to unlock a character must be thought at the same level as buying coffee, as just a one-time purchase that doesn't require further cal…

at least for some of it what's nice is that you are getting exactly what you paid for on the tin, and most importantly you are not getting locked into some god-awful subscription with a cancellation process akin to pulling teeth.

the urge to buy goes down if the subscription is cheap enough ($.99 songs versus $12 a spotify subsscription) but having been through my fair share of attempting contract cancellations this isn't surprising.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#245

Post by homefree »

cherryteastain wrote: post #241
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…

On the other hand, I did pay the $1 for Whatsapp back in the day and I was promised it'd be ad free. Want that $1 back, I actually even deleted my account and uninstalled Whatsapp!

I feel a bit for Brian Acton - iirc he refused to sell because the 500M users paying $500M dollars was more than enough to fund his tiny team (of 30?), but when the offer went up to 19B$ it's just kind of hard to turn down - there's extreme opportunity cost there. Most people would sell before that, 19B$ of principle is quite a lot.

I think it's just if you're empire building - and Zuck is insanely good at this, one of the best - then it'll never be optimal to charge vs. grow massively and then monetize the larger attention base.

Zuck is also in a trench warfare competition with other social media players, it's far from a monopoly. He's historically been more inclined to do things that were worse for growth, but better for users when they had more of a dominant position - but he can't do that anymore.

Somewhat relatedly Apple really missed an opportunity with iMessage. Had they timed it right they could have had a dominant cross platform chat. Instead they're going to be stuck with the modern equivalent of BBM while Zuck and Meta erase their only remaining stronghold in the US as iPhone users continue to move to WhatsApp.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#246

Post by gsich »

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…

Or because back then only credit card payment was possible?

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#248

Post by GrantMoyer »

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…

The problem with this is that once enough people are paying for an ad-free subscription, services reintroduce ads to the paid subscription, sometimes alongside the introduction of a new more expensive ad-free subscriotion.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#249

Post by tcfhgj »

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 not interested in paying Google for anything. It's a company too big and powerful through immoral business (ads)

I block all ads and wish commercial ads would cease to exist even though it would mean I couldn't use somethings anymore without payment.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#250

Post by ocdtrekkie »

homefree wrote: post #245
cherryteastain wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I did pay the $1 for Whatsapp back in the day and I was promised it'd be ad free. Want that $1 back, I actually even deleted my account and uninstalled Whatsapp!

I feel a bit for Brian Acton - iirc he refused to sell because the 500M users paying $500M dollars was more than enough to fund his tiny team (of 30?), but when the offer went up to 19B$ it's just kind of hard to turn down - there's extreme opportunity cost there. Most people would sell before that, 19B$ of principle is quite a lot. I think it's just if you're empire building - and Zuck is insanely good at this, one…

I have not had someone ask me to use WhatsApp in nearly ten years, I deal with people on iMessage every day...
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