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WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

nytimes.com

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Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#541

Post by contravariant »

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).

That's just a paid app with extra steps.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#542

Post by dontlaugh »

chii wrote: post #508
yarekt wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay for services that you use instead of forcing companies to rely on ad revenue to run their useful service? I get it though, no one wants to pay for 100s of little free marginally useful things we use every day, but if you look back at what whatsapp did in the beginning, the £3 a year they were asking is so worth it

at the beginning, they "charged" $1 (or £3 as you said), but this "fee" was often just waived. You never really had to pay it to use whatsapp. The money was there as a form of advertising, to differentiate whatsapp from the others - because by making it seem more premium via attaching a price, it makes the people using it feel more superior and thus the platform more easily propagates; and it's also why they "secretl…

FWIW, £3 is closer to $4.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#543

Post by vips7L »

tacker2000 wrote: post #473
vips7L wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

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

We’re literally in a thread about being served ads in WhatsApp.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#544

Post by mrweasel »

avhception wrote: post #509
yarekt wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay for services that you use instead of forcing companies to rely on ad revenue to run their useful service? I get it though, no one wants to pay for 100s of little free marginally useful things we use every day, but if you look back at what whatsapp did in the beginning, the £3 a year they were asking is so worth it

I remember when it was 1€/year. Absolutely totally worth it! And I'd gladly pay again if they would only let me!

It felt a little weird that they didn't differentiated pricing. Charging 1€ is adds a little to much overhead per transaction, and maybe not everyone has a credit card. It seems to me that an alternative would be to charge e.g. 5, 10 maybe even 20€ per year in western countries, then step the amount down depending on the economy in each region, bottoming out at e.g. 5€. Then just let the app be free in the rest of the world.

That way a user in Europe could "subsidize" 4-10 users in the developing world. Maybe that's a little to social democratic for a corporation.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#546

Post by sebastiennight »

fanwood wrote: post #539
EbNar wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd literally PAY for a mod taking away the "updates" tab. I don't care about stories nor I want channels shoved in my face. I just need to message someone, from time to time.

I found the solution by convincing all my friends and family, one by one, to move to Signal. I still use Whatsapp for people who did not migrate, but it's surprisingly possible (if not easy) to convince people to use another app

Same here. The trick is to never mention "privacy", "no ads", or anything similar (which has negative perceived value).

If you talk about that stuff, people will dilly-dally with the usual "well I already have too many apps, I'm not sure I want to install one more"

I tell people that the video calls are better (which was true in my experience, back when I still used WA). Instant install

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#547

Post by anshumankmr »

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 long before they make it into a Slack/Teams competitor?

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#548

Post by mrweasel »

fanwood wrote: post #539
EbNar wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd literally PAY for a mod taking away the "updates" tab. I don't care about stories nor I want channels shoved in my face. I just need to message someone, from time to time.

I found the solution by convincing all my friends and family, one by one, to move to Signal. I still use Whatsapp for people who did not migrate, but it's surprisingly possible (if not easy) to convince people to use another app

That's amazing, I'm still trying to move our family group chat to Signal... I've moved exact zero family members.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#549

Post by shrx »

frm88 wrote: post #453
wheybags wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Th…

"Bank specific cards" are actually debit cards. As an EU-based end user I see basically no practical difference between the two (I have both a MasterCard credit card and a Visa debit card), except that many US-based online stores' payment processors refuse to work with a debit card.
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