Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–460 of 1001 posts

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#451

Post by camillomiller »

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…

Sounds like my memories of being the computer guy in Italy.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#452

Post by mschuster91 »

wheybags wrote: post #234
dgfitz wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Way to flippantly shit on the paragraphs of explanation they gave of their own free time. Europe though, yeah they’re killing it.

Why should anyone appreciate paragraphs of text from someone who thinks Europeans can't use payment cards? What reason would I have to presume the content of said paragraphs is better informed, given they have trivially disprovable rubbish up front?

> Why should anyone appreciate paragraphs of text from someone who thinks Europeans can't use payment cards?

I'm German, so I'm basing my statement on almost 34 years of living here. In case you want some more details from an actual bank, read this [1].

Basically, we don't need credit cards, not even for renting cars, because we have robust regulation and our own national cashless payment schemes plus SEPA. Direct debit is just fine for us.

[1] https://n26.com/en-de/blog/taboo-of-credit

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#453

Post by frm88 »

wheybags wrote: post #234
dgfitz wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Way to flippantly shit on the paragraphs of explanation they gave of their own free time. Europe though, yeah they’re killing it.

Why should anyone appreciate paragraphs of text from someone who thinks Europeans can't use payment cards? What reason would I have to presume the content of said paragraphs is better informed, given they have trivially disprovable rubbish up front?

You might want to have a look at the usage stats of payment cards (here specifically credit cards) globally. You would realise that usage is low in Europe, compared to the US. https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/people_with_credit.... Most payments are done with regular banking and/or bank specific cards. The latter are not accepted by online platforms, the former has indeed transfer fees in many countries. The grandparents explanations are valid.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#454

Post by ale42 »

k_bx wrote: post #447

I really hope it helps them build a decent app, but I doubt it. In Ukraine, there's a huge problem of Telegram being so feature-rich compared to WhatsApp that it's impossible to convince people to do the switch, even under the national security threat.

If one should switch, why should they switch to WhatsApp instead of something more privacy-friendly as Signal?

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#455

Post by jaoane »

k_bx wrote: post #447

I really hope it helps them build a decent app, but I doubt it. In Ukraine, there's a huge problem of Telegram being so feature-rich compared to WhatsApp that it's impossible to convince people to do the switch, even under the national security threat.

Really WhatsApp is not a national security threat? Ukraine is basically a vassal state of the US at this point, I would think it would be best to depend less of them.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#456

Post by pfortuny »

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.

"People"->Management and C-suits.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#457

Post by Elaris »

It always seems to go like this. An app starts out simple, focused on privacy and a clean experience. But after a while, growth slows down, money becomes a bigger concern, and ads slowly get added. I understand why companies do it, but as a user, it’s frustrating because you already know where it usually ends up.

WhatsApp was great because it didn’t have ads and kept things private. Once they start changing that, it usually doesn’t stop with just one small change.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#458

Post by changadera »

k_bx wrote: post #447

I really hope it helps them build a decent app, but I doubt it. In Ukraine, there's a huge problem of Telegram being so feature-rich compared to WhatsApp that it's impossible to convince people to do the switch, even under the national security threat.

That's funny because one of the reasons I used Telegram originally was the encryption of messages and open sourcedness. Also Whatsapp use to require your phone to be on and with signal to receive messages on the web app.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#459

Post by prmoustache »

k_bx wrote: post #447

I really hope it helps them build a decent app, but I doubt it. In Ukraine, there's a huge problem of Telegram being so feature-rich compared to WhatsApp that it's impossible to convince people to do the switch, even under the national security threat.

What are the telegram features that whatsapp or signal users are missing?

I've tried it in the past and all that could be done was due to the platform not having e2e encryption on standard chats.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#460

Post by ale42 »

perks_12 wrote: post #35

WhatsApp has S-tier status here in Germany. If I had access to a proper API I would pay them per message, without them needing to make their UX worse. If anything, if I had to pay per message, I'd be incentivized not to send too many messages, keeping the distractions for the user at a minimum.

Isn't it what WhatsApp for Business API does? https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/cloud-api/get-...
Post reply on HN