WhatsApp introduces ads in its app • Hacker News Board

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#761

Post by anton-c » Tue, Jun 17, 2025, 12:41 PM UTC

prmoustache wrote: post #475

pesus wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pa…

Yes, I text my brother who has an iphone. Thats our primary communication when not speaking.

As a counter to your question I've never used whatsapp and never saw a reason. What group chats? Are they groups of personal friends or mostly things you would 'follow' like a football club?

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#762

Post by mr_toad » Tue, Jun 17, 2025, 12:47 PM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #611

palata wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get this. Everyone is used to juggling between multiple apps, many of which allow to send messages. People are fine talking over Discord AND WhatsApp AND three others, but somehow "it's unbearable to add Signal". And it's not exactly "yet another app", it's pretty much a clone of WhatsApp. So if everybody moved to Signal, we could just get rid of WhatsApp. Which gets us to your second point: > And I don't wan…

This is not about Signal. This about being spread too thin. To be able to keep up with all the work projects I'm involved in, I need to use Slack, Discord, Matrix at the same time. Add WhatsApp on top of that. That's 4, but not all. Add e-mail and ordinary phone calls. 6 methods to just keep up with work. I also have at least three ways to reach required documents and meeting notes. I really don't want to jump like a…

> I need to use Slack, Discord, Matrix

Sounds like a perfect way to ghost people. “You send the update on Matrix? Oh, yeah I was stuck arguing with people in Slack all day, I must have missed it.”

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#763

Post by dguest » Tue, Jun 17, 2025, 12:52 PM UTC

uncircle wrote: post #636

dguest wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a lot of developing countries WhatsApp doesn't count against your data plan. Signal data is billed like any other app. It's not easy asking all your friends to pay for something they already get "for free".

Ripe for antitrust litigation. Reminds me of Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, developing countries have bigger things on their plate than going against Meta, especially since I figure the “bribes” and promise to improve the nation’s internet infrastructure are very substantial.

The issue is being framed very differently from IE and MS though. You have, to paraphrase:

> Internet.org [1] is providing free internet to millions of people who didn't have it 5 years ago.

vs

> Free WhatsApp is harming market efficiency.

I'm guessing a lot of people are reluctant to spend a lot of effort on the later point.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet.org

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#764

Post by lou1306 » Tue, Jun 17, 2025, 12:52 PM UTC

xorcist wrote: post #514

bapak wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Maybe not the best example. Whatsapp started out as a paid service (even if it was comparably cheap, somewhere around a dollar per year comes to mind), but that didn't help them. They have followed the same trajectory as everyone else. No one exists in isolation, if the market values your user base at ten billion then that is what it is. That also indirectly means someone with deep pockets could spend that order of m…

> but that didn't help them

What do you mean that didn't help them? They were doing quite fine up to the acquisition, no?

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#765

Post by imiric » Tue, Jun 17, 2025, 12:52 PM UTC

If this concerns you and you must use WhatsApp, I highly suggest installing it on a separate device only used for WhatsApp, that doesn't have any contacts besides the ones in WhatsApp, which should only have a name and phone number, and registering it with a burner SIM, or from a virtual service.

An additional layer of security would be installing it in a Work profile in Android (maybe the new profiles feature works for this, I'm not sure), and only activating that profile when you need to use it.

With the recent news about the Facebook and Instagram tracking via WebRTC[1], we can only assume that they're doing it with WhatsApp as well.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44169115

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#766

Post by megaloblasto » Tue, Jun 17, 2025, 12:53 PM UTC

arrowsmith wrote: post #741

ben_w wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, but FWIW I'm British and we also called it that in the late 80s.

Don't we still call it that now?

It's telephone now

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#767

Post by pantulis » Tue, Jun 17, 2025, 12:54 PM UTC

Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #716

phyrex wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been 11 years. If they hadn't been bought they'd have found a different monetization model long ago

They kinda did. Before facebook brought them, the app cost $1/£1 per year (iirc your first year was free). Thing is back then MMS and/or texts across borders was expensive, so if you were regularly sending picture messages to people the $1/£1 sub was a no brainer. Lets wave a magic wand and presume 50% of the user base thought it was also worth $1 a year and it grew just as well as it did (It was growing very well in…

I happen to remember paying 1€ for Whatsapp.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#768

Post by nielsole » Tue, Jun 17, 2025, 12:54 PM UTC

Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #716

phyrex wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been 11 years. If they hadn't been bought they'd have found a different monetization model long ago

They kinda did. Before facebook brought them, the app cost $1/£1 per year (iirc your first year was free). Thing is back then MMS and/or texts across borders was expensive, so if you were regularly sending picture messages to people the $1/£1 sub was a no brainer. Lets wave a magic wand and presume 50% of the user base thought it was also worth $1 a year and it grew just as well as it did (It was growing very well in…

And my understanding back then was that enforcement of payment was via the honour system. It was even possible to pay for your contacts, likely to make it as low friction as possible especially as paying for something on the internet was still a relatively new thing.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#769

Post by yakkomajuri » Tue, Jun 17, 2025, 12:56 PM UTC

I guess this was expected, but it makes me feel really powerless in the sense that I can't really move away from WhatsApp.

I have a couple of friends that I message via Signal and even convinced my dad to use it a while back, but here in Brazil WhatsApp is _everything_, and I doubt most people care about this at all. In my case, I'd love to just go over to Signal fully but then I couldn't talk to family, friends, and probably couldn't even book a haircut or pay my taxes (my accountant messages me on WhatsApp).

It's one of those where unless just about everyone were to go over to Signal, most people won't, because keeping track of messages in two apps is quite hard.

That leaves me stuck in this ecosystem, which is quite sad.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#770

Post by anton-c » Tue, Jun 17, 2025, 12:56 PM UTC

sigotirandolas wrote: post #185

wvh wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am conflicted because to some extent, paying for some of these services feels like paying a blackmailer, spying on you, holding a whole ecosystem hostage and even jeopardising mental health and the public discourse. I pay for email and some other services. Some other services, not so much. I find it hard to support some companies financially because I don't agree with their basic modus operandi. It's not the money;…

To be devil's advocate, this is the kind of all-talk argument the parent was referring to. Once the paid option is available, people will demand it to be [cheaper / better / someone else] and still not pay. While I don't love my money going to Google, I find YouTube's overall quality astronomically higher than Instagram/Twitter/TikTok/etc. and the amount of censorship/"moderation"/controversy has been relatively limi…

I agree with the premise of your argument but just have to point out we seem to have been given 'unalived' and a few other new terms thanks to youtubes aggressive demonetization. They haven't been amazing on censorship but still probably better than those others.

Now whether someone who is putting out an opinion should care about getting paid is another thing, but it kills your video traffic usually too.