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WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

nytimes.com

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Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#971

Post by hocuspocus »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #968
hocuspocus wrote: post #908

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with SMS even if unlimited, in Europe a lot of people need to send text messages across borders. EU mandated free roaming, which makes SMS billing under the same pricing conditions when you're roaming but doesn't say anything about sending SMS abroad when you're in your home country. Also what happens if you need to send an SMS to a Swiss or UK number? While effectively unlimited plans do exist as carriers…

I’m surprised there wasn’t competition to deliver a better product from the telecoms. That is how we got unlimited texting and the early unlimited data plans in the US. Carrier arms race. They sure would have liked to nickel and dime but saw competition as more valuable.

RCS should have been that, but WhatsApp came out in 2009 and by 2010/2011 it was already game over in most of the world once cheaper Android smartphones became broadly available. At this point carriers' focus had shifted to data and the most pressing issue was starting the 4G rollout.

No wonder Google eventually took the RCS matter in their own hands, there was way too little incentive otherwise.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#972

Post by Guest9081239812 »

account42 wrote: post #949
Guest9081239812 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only generates about 15k a year in ad revenue. It's fairly low revenue because: 1. Users are spread around the world. This isn't a site with 70% US visitors. 2. The majority of users run ad block, and this continues to rise. 3. Ad rates plummet each year. I earn about 5x less on the site now, than in the past, with the same number of active users, and 3x as many advertisements. I've tried all the major advertising…

So you are overcharging paid users by over 500% and complaining that not many take that deal? See that's the problem with all these "people won't pay for ad-free services" arguments. It almost always boils down this kind of abusive pricing. And honestly, what you could make from users through ads is not what I care about. You are making zero from me through ads because I block them everywhere and that is not negotiab…

I'm a little confused where you're trying to go with this comment. I develop and maintain a service that has been used by millions of people. I make less net profit than a part-time McDonald's employee. Is this not "costs + modest margin"? Where is the abusive pricing?

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#973

Post by bitmasher9 »

account42 wrote: post #940
bitmasher9 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a market for paid software services with a promise of not enshittifying. Kagi and Fastmail are two examples. Now, this market probably isn’t going to put you in the Fortune 500, but is enough to run a profitable business.

The problem is that there is also tons of services that promised not to enshittify but then changed their minds when they thought that fucking over their users would be more profitable. That includes even Google, look up their early views on ads. Because of this those promises are often (IMO rightfully) ignored as hot air. The only way to ensure that your software doesn't get enshittified is to legally guarantee that…

Yeah I love open source. Daily Linux desktop user and open source code contributor here.

Open source doesn’t solve the problem “I need to be able to search the entire internet for a document.” Even “I want to safely receive email” is a challenge to do with open source software. At some point I need to use software as a service, and at that point I’d prefer to give money to the service directly than having the service target advertising at me.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#974

Post by throwaway314155 »

bigyabai wrote: post #924
recursive wrote: post #858

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s much much stronger than the iMessage norm in the US. I've lived in the US all my life, and I didn't even know there was a norm at all, so that's not much of a threshold.

It's less prominent if you were already 20-30 when the first iPhone came out. In slightly-affluent primary schools, owning an iPhone was your inroad to a cult of iMessage games and insular group chats. If you didn't beg mommy and daddy to fork over $600 and tax to Verizon then you didn't join the cool group chats. It sounds petty, but not very abnormal for growing up in America.

Respectfully, you can't extrapolate a single experience to _every_ "slightly-affluent primary school". Even the most miniscule of cultural differences can and will lead to different outcomes such as "did you just judge me for a green bubble? what sort of asshole thinks that's worth judging someone over?" (group proceeds to make fun of the iPhone user)

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#975

Post by emseetech »

account42 wrote: post #940
bitmasher9 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a market for paid software services with a promise of not enshittifying. Kagi and Fastmail are two examples. Now, this market probably isn’t going to put you in the Fortune 500, but is enough to run a profitable business.

The problem is that there is also tons of services that promised not to enshittify but then changed their minds when they thought that fucking over their users would be more profitable. That includes even Google, look up their early views on ads. Because of this those promises are often (IMO rightfully) ignored as hot air. The only way to ensure that your software doesn't get enshittified is to legally guarantee that…

That's not the only way. Wikipedia has avoided it through a non-profit, donation and volunteer based structure.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#976

Post by willywanker »

account42 wrote: post #947
anon-3988 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be fine if you also don't use Adblock. You can't say I use the bakery for free as long as I have the backdoor access key and therefore "free".

Let's imagine if there was a free bakery though. But being free they were always struggling and sometimes the bread was a bit late. Then BigBakeryCo moves into town and also provides free bread as long as you also take one of their magazines and promise to read it. Not most people will go to BigBakeryCo because their funds from selling magazine space means they can provide a more professional service. Now there is al…

Only if you consider hosting the entire infrastructure for concurrent video streaming to millions of users as 'inserting themselves'. Before Youtube there was no way to distribute your home video to a large audience beyond sending the entire physical video file (too large to email, for starters) and the recipients having to deal with whatever mostly proprietary formats it had to be made in.

From the viewers' side, there was no place to go and browse videos, you were limited to short embedded clips or had to download the entire file first.

Youtube was a game changer when it first appeared and Google hadn't yet acquired it.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#977

Post by int_19h »

ndriscoll wrote: post #903
int_19h wrote: post #879

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is mobile, and specifically the need for push notifications to have reasonable battery life. The traditional model that desktop IM clients use, where they have a permanent connection to the server, is not viable on mobile. But push notifications require you to design your protocol around them and lock you into the corresponding provider (i.e. Google or Apple, depending on the platform).

I'm not familiar with real world home firewall behavior, but shouldn't you be able to leave a TCP connection open/idle with no keepalive for minutes if not hours? I'm skeptical of the battery life argument around notification lockin, particularly when I see how much Android devices light up a pihole.

I don't claim to understand the specifics, but I was a heavy user of custom XMPP clients on early Android phones, and they did require a persistent notification to keep the app (and thus the connection) alive, which did translate to measurable battery impact. My understanding is that the built-in notification manager helps with this by multiplexing and batching everything.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#978

Post by arrowsmith »

megaloblasto wrote: post #766
arrowsmith wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't we still call it that now?

It's telephone now

I'm 34 and I have never heard anyone in the UK refer to this game as "telephone" (although I'm aware that that's what Americans call it.)

Is this what the kids say now? Am I getting old?

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#979

Post by lisa117 »

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.

[dead]

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#980

Post by jen20 »

sebastiennight wrote: post #710
jen20 wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fun fact is that those people have 100+ apps on their phones, which run in the background, draining their batteries, tracking the sh*t out of them, This is wildly untrue on iOS. Perhaps people have 100+ apps. But the rest, not so much.

You're saying that having all the apps open at the same time won't drain the iPhone's battery? Because normal people just never close apps. Are they silently shut down/paused after a while?

> Are they silently shut down/paused after a while?

Yes. This has been the case since 2008 when the first version of iOS supporting third-party apps was released. Background refresh allows some quanta of work do be done when an app is not in the foreground, but only limited things.

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