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WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

nytimes.com

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Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#431

Post by rkomorn »

parpfish wrote: post #356
leokennis wrote: post #7

At least in The Netherlands, WhatsApp could show a 60 second unskippable modal ad video on every launch, and still get away with it due to network effects. If you’re not on WhatsApp, no updates or news from your kids school, your sports team, your family, your car dealership etc. for you.

Here’s an advertising model I’ve thought about but never seen: The app itself is 100% ad free and runs on credits. You get credits through se other portal by logging in to watch ads whenever it’s convenient for you. Good app experience for the user, and potentially better experiences for the advertisers because they get the target audience when they are most open to ads (and not annoyed by them).

There's no guarantee that the user is "open to ads" in your model. I'd say it's even more likely someone would "watch" the ads while doing something else (AKA not actually watch the ads).

And if you want add something that makes sure the user is paying attention, then you have seen this advertising mode: it's basically the second ever Black Mirror episode.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#432

Post by blitzar »

gruez wrote: post #165
blitzar wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any man who must say, "I am the King", is no true king. Any tech company who must say, "we don't harvest your information", is a tech company that harvests your information.

Signal also claims the same: > We can't read your messages or listen to your calls, and no one else can either. Should we be suspicious of Signal as well?

Yes, in proportion to the number of times they bring it up in a conversation.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#433

Post by MaxikCZ »

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…

> met one person [...] who actually pays for YT Premium.

I dont like that while the ad revenue barely extracts a dollar from me, my subscription suddenly expects $10-30 per month regardless of my usage.

Thats not "we need to charge you to continue our services", thats "we need to charge you and then 20x times again just because we can".

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#434

Post by mort96 »

cocoto wrote: post #411
crossroadsguy wrote: post #374

The 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!”?).

Criticizing Signal for its crypto payment system is ridiculous. The option is totally optional and completely buried as it is literally the last option when messaging. It’s better to criticize the rule against third-party clients.

Both things are worthy of criticism. I'd ideally not use a messaging client that's embroidered in an ecosystem of cryptocurrency scams. Same reason I really don't like Brave even though its cryptocurrency BS is also "optional". It's erosive.

But yeah, I might agree that the third party clients thing is a bigger issue. Especially when the official client insists on not officially supporting Linux on ARM64 and not playing nice with Wayland. (Seriously, Signal on Linux is so blurry!)

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#435

Post by _9ptr »

p0w3n3d wrote: post #422
crossroadsguy wrote: post #374

The 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!”?).

in a few months: 30m ago: Honey, buy me new Tampax Eraser Pro Black Night 1m ago: There are only Day version, should I buy it? 0m ago: What? What are you buying? . 0m ago: I didn't write this...

The AI-agent is just gonna execute the purchase, no need to ask!

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#437

Post by h4kunamata »

And people will still use it, that is why big techs get away pushing a lot of crappy into users.

There was some wild change they wanted to push some time ago, users started mass migration away from it forcing them to abandon their insane plans.

These companies only learn when the problem hits their pocket.

I still have my social media accounts coz otherwise, hobbies and alike gets impossible to track. But I only access them via PC browser/mobile browser on my GrapheneOS phone.

Instagram only allows video upload via their app which I can understand (compression and etc), GrapheneOS allows me to lock everything so I only use it to upload videos. Man, it is a complete mess, Sponsored, Threads posts that takes you to install apps and ADs is everywhere and I mean everywhere.

On my phone/PC, nothing of the above exist. It is just one post after another with, no Ads, no sponsored, no apps, nothing. Facebook follows suit, I have not used their app in years now, mobile browser only.

WhatsApp is gonna become exactly the same, a complete mess. People accepted Instagram changes so....

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#438

Post by IshKebab »

cocoto wrote: post #411
crossroadsguy wrote: post #374

The 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!”?).

Criticizing Signal for its crypto payment system is ridiculous. The option is totally optional and completely buried as it is literally the last option when messaging. It’s better to criticize the rule against third-party clients.

You could say the same about Whatsapp's ads though. They are currently in a part of the app that virtually nobody uses.

Maybe financial pressure will push Signal to promote its crypto more in future.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#439

Post by sundarurfriend »

whoisyc wrote: post #367
cameldrv wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Kagi has a little over 50k paying users. Hacker news has 5 million monthly unique users [1]. Given how hacker news constantly complain about google’s decline and the constant virtue signaling on the need to pay for software, you would expect a sizable chunk of the users (the vocal ones, at least) here pay for Kagi. And yet we are here. GP is absolutely right about it being all-talk. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/i…

In general, 95% of users in any site are passive lurkers. So that leaves Hacker News with 250k active monthly users that comment and engage (which is likely still a massive overestimate). Of those, in the wide variety of comments and discussions, complaints about search and google in particular are again about 5% at most (being generous with numbers once more). That leaves us with 12500 people on HN who should potentially pay for Kagi. Seems like four times that many are doing it by your numbers.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#440

Post by _Algernon_ »

d3vmax wrote: post #426

Alice Newton-Rex, head of product at WhatsApp: “Alongside of private messaging, people were saying they wanted to hear more about topics, teams and organizations across WhatsApp.” - I am pretty sure NO ONE asked to hear about more topics and organizations across whatsapp.

Translation: After going through a far too large number of focus groups that didn't want it we finally found one that phrased a reply in such a way, that after removing context and playing Chinese whispers up the management chain, can be interpreted as them wanting ads.
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