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WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

nytimes.com

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Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#281

Post by nyarlathotep_ »

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…

> 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?

Probably not many. OTOH, I pay for Fastmail and NextDNS (both for at least 5 years at this point).

People give strange looks when I mention paying for e-mail, even people "in the know."

SAAS offerings for individuals don't have a lot of market share (streaming services aside). The exception might be iCloud/GMail harassing people about running out of storage, and people just eventually going "sure, here's 3 bucks a month."

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#282

Post by Zak »

RestlessMind wrote: post #273
Zak wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now Brian Acton has a huge pile of money to help fund Signal, so I don't think he has to feel too terrible about selling out. > Somewhat relatedly Apple really missed an opportunity with iMessage. Had they timed it right they could have had a dominant cross platform chat. Google also had the opportunity to do this. Around the same time iMessage launched, Google made Hangouts the default SMS app on Android with a simi…

I used Hangouts including the dogfood versions internally at Google. Problem was it was too complicated because it was designed by Googlers for Googlers. So it supported desktop and mobile, work email and personal email and phone numbers, text and video, and so on. In short, every single complexity conceivable was crammed into the app. Whereas Whatsapp was simple - only phone numbers to sign up, only text and images,…

Thanks for the insider perspective.

I used Hangouts for a while and had a bunch of contacts on it when it was Android's default SMS app. Many of them were not particularly technical, including one of my parents whom I don't recall telling to use it. If you were using an Android phone, you were probably already logged in to a Google account. iPhone users had to work a little harder for it (install the app and remember the password to the Gmail account they probably already had).

I don't recall the UX on the mobile client having extra complexity over other messaging apps if I didn't go digging in the settings, but it's been a while.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#283

Post by vinay427 »

Funes- wrote: post #102
ghusto wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands, was trying to promote Signal. I switched phones and lost all my history. Now I’m fairly careful with these things, and make backups, but even I wasn’t able to get it back. Couldn’t recommend it to anyone since. There’s a line between being secure and being useful, and they’re slightly unbalanced in Signal.

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

Message history still can’t be backed up on iOS, and also can’t be moved between Android and iOS in either direction AFAIK. There are far more gaps here than just imperfect users, which is often a UX problem as others have noted.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#284

Post by Melatonic »

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…

Highly doubt that - I feel like most people I communicate with on WhatsApp are for group chats vs individual messages might be imesssage or signal or many other platforms.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#285

Post by xp84 »

1oooqooq wrote: post #216
xp84 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Whatsapp is messaging-focused, but I'm willing to bet the quotation you just gave is not even 10% of the reason people choose to use it.

If I understand it correctly, people use it mainly because MMS was a dumpster fire and WA was the first platform which got critical mass in most countries, which it achieved by being both pretty good overall and by being cross-platform.

The encryption is a nice bonus that everybody likes, but you can't prove that is a primary or even major reason why plumbers in India, tour guides in Dubai, and school parent groups in the US all choose to communicate with it, personally and professionally. If anything, I feel like Signal must have by now poached a good number of the people whose main concern is "How encrypted is it?"

Also, Gmail is not a public forum and people don't mind that it's 'ad-ridden' either.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#286

Post by socalgal2 »

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…

> people would never pay for software.

I see this and not see this.

See this = friend wants to check out app but it costs $1-$3. I'm like, that's less than a coffee or a candy bar that you consume disposably. Why not just try it and if it's sucks throw it away, the same way you might with a new food item? That argument doesn't work on them for some reason.

not see = Steam

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#287

Post by simfree »

Zak wrote: post #282
RestlessMind wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Hangouts including the dogfood versions internally at Google. Problem was it was too complicated because it was designed by Googlers for Googlers. So it supported desktop and mobile, work email and personal email and phone numbers, text and video, and so on. In short, every single complexity conceivable was crammed into the app. Whereas Whatsapp was simple - only phone numbers to sign up, only text and images,…

Thanks for the insider perspective. I used Hangouts for a while and had a bunch of contacts on it when it was Android's default SMS app. Many of them were not particularly technical, including one of my parents whom I don't recall telling to use it. If you were using an Android phone, you were probably already logged in to a Google account. iPhone users had to work a little harder for it (install the app and remember…

I think the concept of a user having an existing Gmail account if they aren't in the Google ecosystem is a bit of hubris.

There are many people I run across who bypassed the whole Gmail and Google Workspace ecosystems and have rolled along merrily with me.com and other email providers.

It's not a given that users will have bothered to register for a Google account unless they grew up in the Bay Area after a certain time period.

Wind back the clock to when Google tried to roll out Hangouts and the Gmail penetration rate was even lower among the non-Android users out there.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#289

Post by [deleted] »

tumsfestival wrote: post #224
carlosjobim wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#290

Post by RestlessMind »

ndriscoll wrote: post #90
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.

How was it unsustainable? As far as I know they were simply competent. They charged $1/year, so had ~half a billion in revenue, right? They probably could've bumped that to $2-$5/year with similar uptake. And they ran it with ~500 servers and 50 employees 12 years ago, so could probably do the same with ~50 or fewer servers today.

They never charged everyone. I was on Android back then and never paid a dime. Neither did anyone I know who was using Whatsapp on Android
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