There’s something particularly paternalistic about this statement from the PM: “Your personal messages, calls and statuses, they will remain end-to-end encrypted”.
Every time I read such a statment I mentally add "for now" at the end.
WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
71–80 of 1001 posts
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#72WhatsApp 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.
This is why they've been pretty draconian in banning users who work around the official apps and limits. Otherwise, to force their ads they would have to oust third-parties the way Reddit did.
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#73Just another reason iMessage is coming out on top.
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
They were working on it in 2019 when I left, I thought it was tested in one country after that and then it got shelved. IIRC, it needed a ToS change and there was too much pushback. I had been voluntold to be on the ads team, because I had sent a list of things that needed to be done to make ads doable and not terrible. Of course, none of my ideas were deemed feasible at the time, including figuring our the ToS stuff…
> things that needed to be done to make ads doable and not terrible ... none of my ideas were deemed feasible at the time Don't sell yourself short ... they did all the things to make ads doable it was just not feasible to make them not terrible.
I mean, they didn't, at least at the time, because they couldn't launch it.
In my mind, early focus on ToS could have possibly gotten the change more palletable/directed the project towards more palletable choices or perhaps more likely gotten to the cancellation decision faster and people could work on different things.
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#75> When Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, the messaging app had a clear focus. No ads, no games and no gimmicks. This sort of analysis is very surface-level I think. My impression is WhatsApp offered that by running on VC money and had no plan to run an actual business. That's not a question of focus. It's an unsustainable, please monetise me later land grab.
Youtube was the same. Both are products that people really want to use.
Also Instagram and others. It was about capturing and selling community.
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#76> When Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, the messaging app had a clear focus. No ads, no games and no gimmicks. This sort of analysis is very surface-level I think. My impression is WhatsApp offered that by running on VC money and had no plan to run an actual business. That's not a question of focus. It's an unsustainable, please monetise me later land grab.
Youtube was the same. Both are products that people really want to use.
I agree, although that's too vague. YouTube has a different appeal. But my point is more that I wouldn't say YouTube got ads because it stopped having a focus on not having ads. It needs to pay for itself.
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#77WhatsApp 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.
> If anything, if I had to pay per message, I'd be incentivized not to send too many messages
Sounds like SMS.
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#78Would be nice if these kinds of articles would at least take a paragraph to plug some alternatives, such as Signal.
Signal have a few things that make it a hard sell. It's really hard to clean up media. You have to go into every single chat and from there go about deleting stuff. At least they finally added a "select all" option in there recently. So the size of it just grows and grows and grows until it's using all the space on your phone. Not a good fit for non-technical types. Secondly, no web view. There is the desktop app yes…
It's very frustrating, I admit. Backups and archival are indeed a pet peeve of mine, as are the frequent redesigns (but that's just a "feature" virtually every single god-damn modern app).
What is the alternative though? A private chat app, mobile + desktop, syncing, with enough ease of setup and use for normies to adopt? I don't see it.
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#79Does anyone know what's the state of the art way for cutting crap out of android apps? In the same way adblock cuts crap out of web pages? I assume one would need a Java disassembler at least. On desktop, something like recaf works and allows changing things in classes without the full recompilation. Is there something like this for android?
DNS blocking with tools like DNSNet get you halfway there without tampering with the apps. It installs itself like a VPN and filters dns requests to ad domains using lists from the same sources as the adblockers. I say halfway because some apps have a fallback, built-in, ad when it can't reach the server, other serve the ads from their own servers so no way to block them. Most only leave a blank space.
also adaway, which does the same or can be used in root mode to edit the hosts file.
I use the hosts file from there, and edit it manually via "adb root" (lineageos. root only via adb)
Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’d love to know the expected ad revenue per user for makers of apps like WhatsApp, Instagram. I’m pretty convinced I’d pay 10x or more than that amount for a completely ad free version but I can’t be sure.
You would not, because 90% of the years wouldn't pay and you wouldn't also to have nobody to talk to after everybody moves to the next chat app
Why would users who can continue to receive exactly the same experience as today leave because some other users can opt to pay to go ad-free?