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WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

nytimes.com

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Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#471

Post by bapak »

fouronnes3 wrote: post #466
b0a04gl wrote: post #427

everyone saw this coming the day facebook bought it, but the real issue isn't ads in status . it's that the platform is now locked into meta's attention monetization engine. the founders explicitly said no ads. now not only ads, but paid channels, algorithmic exposure, and user segmentation creeping in. most people won't switch because of network effects, so meta can keep tightening the screws. this isn't about reven…

It is becoming painfully apparent that the cycle of enshittification is truly inevitable, right up there next to the second law of thermodynamics.

[flagged]

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#472

Post by Daisywh »

I remember switching to WhatsApp many years ago, mainly because it had no ads and encrypted chats, while other apps were constantly crammed with ads and features I didn't need. Now I feel like I'm slowly going back to that old path. Sometimes it really feels like no app can really stay clean for long.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#473

Post by tacker2000 »

vips7L wrote: post #278
tacker2000 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

imessage is irrelevant outside of the US.

That literally means nothing when it comes to determining which is the better platform.

Imessage is a platform also owned by big tech, and the primary motivation and goal of Apple is to keep users locked in to their own ecosystem.

As a a result, imessage doesnt support any other mobile platforms properly, and even discriminates against users that dont have an iphone. The world outside of the US doesnt have 80% iphone penetration.

How you can say that imessage is any “better” is a complete mystery to me.

Both apps (whatsapp and imessage) are just here to serve their big tech overlords in their own bigger picture.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#474

Post by bapak »

DecentShoes wrote: post #398
SlowTao wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's almost as if people are made of inconsistent meat

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#475

Post by prmoustache »

pesus wrote: post #262
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…

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

how do imessage and android users communicate with each others? Do android users really still use sms to reach apple users? Don't they have group chats everywhere?

Here in europe every club/association/group has a whatsapp group chat. For instance here since the official app provided by the government has a super clunky UX most people get information from primary school through a whatsapp group chat managed by the parent's representative who has exclusive access to teaching group.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#476

Post by worldsayshi »

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…

Solving this properly probably means solving how to pay for open source. I think it needs a somewhat complex scheme of pooling money together into an ad-hoc fund like entity and distributing it to service providers by someone elected for the task.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#477

Post by Bluestein »

camillomiller wrote: post #450
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.

How do one cope on a day to day basis with this level of blatant bullshittery, apart from justifying it with a golden salary? Is this person aware that her role is to enact a farce, or even engineer such farce?

(And, to begin with, the whole notion of them having to/having had to focus-group these decisions - so as to, perhaps - give them a "veneer" of grassroots pseudo-democracy is preposterous.-

Why don't they just come out and say "because, profit!" or some good ol' fashioned BS about "value-creation" or some other American thing like that ...)

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#478

Post by Agingcoder »

whoisyc wrote: post #358
socalgal2 wrote: post #286

Earlier 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…

I got one from the play store once - I called them. The conversation was a bit surreal ( they kept telling me it wasn’t their fault , before eventually suggesting a refund )

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#479

Post by muppetman »

anshumankmr wrote: post #378
muppetman wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay for YT Premium. Not because I care for stupid videos, but because you get YT Music for free with it... Spotify is the hottest of garbage in my opinion, constantly trying to push podcasts at me. Why more people don't cancel Spotify and just pay for YT Premium - you get ad-free videos and all the music of Spotify. Plus with YT Music you can upload your own FLAC/MP3s to it, so all that odd werid music you've got t…

Its baffling how bad YT Music reccomendations are for me though (personally). My personal email account is something I have had since 2008 and there is probably history going back till then and even then somehow YT Music just gives bad reccomendations

Yea, recommendations aren't great, but then Spotify wasn't much good either. This is an area where I hope their work in AI can help. Instead they seem to be focusing on stupid integrations like in the Play Store - now I can ask the Play Store about an app... wtf?

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#480

Post by lugu »

socalgal2 wrote: post #286
Xenoamorphous wrote: post #131

Earlier 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…

> 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

IMO the problem of many platforms is that they don't let you "own" the software (whatever that means).

Steam experience is closer to the feel of ownership because: - Most games don't just randomly upgrade. They are stable. - Steam is cross platform enough that you can use the software on different devices as if you were copying it. - Your steam account isn't the center of your digital life, it's access isn't subject to many associated risks.

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