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WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
391–400 of 1001 posts
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
I buy almost everything with a piece of plastic that represents a company who's agreed to lend me money that represents absolutely nothing except the common agreement that it's valuable.
Yes and credit cards are a learned behavior, not an instinctual thing - and I think not buying an app for $1 is largely based on instinct.
People instinctively or factually know that there are other apps that do basically the same thing for free.
It's the case for messaging apps and for almost any other kind of app. It's hard to beat the price point of a free app, even if it might include tracking, advertising, spying inside their package.
If WhatsApp would start asking for money hundreds of millions of people would switch to something else in a few days, even to a free app created overnight to capitalize on the opportunity.
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#393Does 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 have a pet theory that the world would be slightly better place if the United States Postal Service had launched a convenient and free (taxpayer-funded) email service before Google:
1. I think folks would be naturally more skeptical of the government than they are of big tech, ideally leading to E2EE for email that's usable by the masses.
2. Phishing and scams could have a dedicated law enforcement arm (Postal Inspectors).
3. We'd reduce the amount of email-based personal data being mined and turned into entirely unregulated ad-tech nightmares.
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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
Thanks to Australian customer protection laws, Steam has some of the most lenient refund policies among digital software stores. You can usually get a full refund if your play time is less than a few hours. Plus there are frequent sales. Don’t underestimate the psychological impact of making people feel “I have to buy this now or the deal will be gone.” I genuinely do not know how to get a refund from the google play…
> Thanks to Australian customer protection laws
Source? I always thought this was a general Steam policy, as it's available pretty much anywhere.
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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
Thanks to Australian customer protection laws, Steam has some of the most lenient refund policies among digital software stores. You can usually get a full refund if your play time is less than a few hours. Plus there are frequent sales. Don’t underestimate the psychological impact of making people feel “I have to buy this now or the deal will be gone.” I genuinely do not know how to get a refund from the google play…
> Thanks to Australian customer protection laws, Steam has some of the most lenient refund policies among digital software stores. You can usually get a full refund if your play time is less than a few hours.
I think it’s actually worldwide?
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#396Does 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…
Consumer stance on paying for software has changed drastically now because of AI. Even outside of utility software like Chat GPT, people are paying for image generators etc.
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#397The frogs have been boiled enough by now gradually and very efficiently. They have been primed well. (In another news Signal still has focus on crytpo. Is this Firefox+Pocket level of stickiness and “we are right!”?).
Embrace, extend, EXPLOIT!
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#398Earlier 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…
When the Apple App store came along it was wild seeing how quickly software went from $10 down to 0.99c in the space of less than a year. And then it was only a matter of time before it dropped to zero. Once it hit zero, the tolerance for payment of any kind went to zero as well for a very large portion of people. Apps and the internet in general, for most people, is considered almost weightless and zero cost. In the…
True. Yet, if you don't charge for the software itself, but instead you make that purchase only unlock a skin or some fake currency in that software, and worse, only have a small chance of being the one that user wants, suddenly people will pay 10, 20, or 100 dollars for your software, over and over again.
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks to Australian customer protection laws, Steam has some of the most lenient refund policies among digital software stores. You can usually get a full refund if your play time is less than a few hours. Plus there are frequent sales. Don’t underestimate the psychological impact of making people feel “I have to buy this now or the deal will be gone.” I genuinely do not know how to get a refund from the google play…
> Thanks to Australian customer protection laws, Steam has some of the most lenient refund policies among digital software stores. You can usually get a full refund if your play time is less than a few hours. I think it’s actually worldwide?
Yes, but they did it because Australia forced them to.
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've got a Nebula lifetime membership and it's neat. I actually discovered channels through it (Not Just Bikes, WonderWhy, 12tone,...) which I hadn't heard of before. I also paid for YT Premium Lite in the past. The full YT Premium is too expensive for me, though. But I feel a better example of paying for convenience is the Twitch subscriber system. They make it work in a way that others fail at by tying it in to var…
Twitch also lets people pay more than just the service price. So you'll they some people paying for themselves, but you'll also get whales paying for hundreds of other people. No other site I know of lets you do that really.
And it's not just that they pay for other people and that money goes to the particular streaming they're watching - they gift subs which can they be given to any other streamer if they want. Twitch does seem to have quite a versatile and user-friendly model for supporting creators.
(I think? I'm not very well-versed in Twitch stuff)