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WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

nytimes.com

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Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#261

Post by cherryteastain »

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…

> 500M users paying $500M dollars

There's no way they actually earned $500M/year. Even if Whatsapp had 100 employees making $200k/year on average, that's $20M on salaries. Add an another very generous $80M on infra/admin etc costs and they'd have been making $400M profit. With that much profit achieved within such a short period, in the QE funny money era they could have IPO'd at $50-100 billion easily.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#262

Post by pesus »

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…

Is there any data that shows people in the US are switching to WhatsApp? The only people I've ever seen use it are people with family in other countries. The statistics I've seen indicate that iPhone usage amongst American teenagers is high and still increasing(1), which almost certainly would lead to higher iMessage usage.

(1) https://www.pipersandler.com/teens

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#263

Post by jmknoll »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #250
homefree wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Are you in North America? I’ve found this to be true in the US, but not in Europe or Asia.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#264

Post by Marsymars »

cameldrv wrote: post #89
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…

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

Getting my work to pay for Kagi was an easy conversation compared to how I’d imagine me asking them to pay for YouTube or Spotify would go.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#265

Post by appreciatorBus »

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.

YouTube's educational value can be unmatched, but it doesn't follow that 99% of time spent on YouTube is educational or even useful.

I'd bet the ratio of time I have spent legit learning something useful vs just using it as distraction/entertainment ("educational" channels are often just entertainment for nerds like us)/background, it has to be something like 1000 to 1. I wouldn't need to replace the 999 at all. I guess I would read books a bit more, probably get a lot more done on personal projects, go out a bit more etc.

Not clear at all my life would be worse off except in that pinch where I need to know how to disassemble & fix the thing, right now.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#266

Post by AshamedCaptain »

als0 wrote: post #260
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Meanwhile in Europe it’s the opposite.

You can still survive without Facebook-crap perfectly. On the other hand it's hard to survive without either an Android or iPhone device.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#267

Post by ocdtrekkie »

Zak wrote: post #258
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I can predict the country you live in with reasonable reliability from this comment alone. This would not be true most places outside of the USA and maybe Canada. In a few countries/regions it might be a different third-party messaging app.

Obviously, but the parent talks about Apple losing its US market to WhatsApp. Not sure that's remotely realistic, and them adding advertising only makes it even less realistic.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#269

Post by Karrot_Kream »

qwerpy wrote: post #220
nytesky wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's a "I don't want to see content like this" option you can signal on content and I find it works quite well

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#270

Post by Balooga »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #250
homefree wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Africa runs on WhatsApp.

Went to South Africa on vacation last year. United lost our luggage on the first leg of the trip, which then became South African Airways responsibility to sort out because they handled our final leg.

I communicated directly with the SAA baggage agent over WhatsApp. Then communicated over WhatsApp with the courier delivering our bags . Best customer service ever.

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