WhatsApp introduces ads in its app • Hacker News Board

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#981

Post by bigyabai » Thu, Jun 19, 2025, 3:54 PM UTC

throwaway314155 wrote: post #974

bigyabai wrote: post #924

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

> Even the most miniscule of cultural differences can and will lead to different outcomes

I certainly didn't say it was the only outcome. I switched schools three times in my youth, and each place I went had different kids but the same materialist obsessions. Some people did mock the Apple users, for what little it did to get them into the iMessage chats. Every school I went to had an 'iPhone in group' though, and if you didn't have the right phone you didn't get to chat, period.

My larger point, which you really don't need to extrapolate for, is that Apple knew they were making a FOMO-based service that would predate on kids and adults with maligned priorities. They understood the social clusterfuck that they engineered, and marketed the hell out of it; because it worked, bragging about iMessage does sell iPhones.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#982

Post by throwaway314155 » Thu, Jun 19, 2025, 9:51 PM UTC

bigyabai wrote: post #981

throwaway314155 wrote: post #974

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

> Even the most miniscule of cultural differences can and will lead to different outcomes I certainly didn't say it was the only outcome. I switched schools three times in my youth, and each place I went had different kids but the same materialist obsessions. Some people did mock the Apple users, for what little it did to get them into the iMessage chats. Every school I went to had an 'iPhone in group' though, and if…

Fair enough. I went to public school and (I believe) more people do in general. In my particular public school it was frowned upon to brag about your privilege as many had less fortunate upbringings. Mind you, this was still in a (relatively) affluent area - so general amenities were okay but many people still didn't come from extravagant or even mild wealth.

Excessive privilege really fucks with people's worldview.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#983

Post by xp84 » Thu, Jun 19, 2025, 11:49 PM UTC

Marsymars wrote: post #889

xp84 wrote: post #881

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> doesn’t have to cost more than the ad-supported ARPU I'll state up front that I'm not much of a socialist, so I realize opinions will vary, but it seems crazy to regulate something so frivolous as a social media site to the point of setting its prices. If people don't like Facebook, their ads, or their pricing, simply not using it is not a life-crippling suggestion the way "don't use the Internet" is. So I'd suppor…

I'm not much of a socialist either, and I wish that social media was frivolous enough that I didn't see their regulation as a reasonable proposition. The problem isn't access to memes, it's that for various categories of services/interactions, Meta (and presumably WeChat and/or others in other locales) properties effectively are the internet. I've seen all of the following use social media services as their sole meth…

> [...] hosting of the informational/communication platforms for a wide array of local groups/organizations/businesses is something they chose to do,

I would argue that it's those people (citizens/companies/orgs) who did the important choosing here, not Meta. It's more cheap and accessible than ever to make a website that isn't dependent on social media, and there are tons of alternatives for connecting groups.

The elephant in the room, I think, is that most people actually feel that Whatsapp, Facebook Groups, etc. have no important downsides. I can't prove it, but I suspect that more than half the people who are involved in such network-effect communication (let's say, all the categories you described, the non-1:1 communication that takes place hosted on Meta platforms) find it to be very convenient, not least because they're already on those platforms by choice for recreation.

THAT is why it's so hard for the minority who philosophically hate ideas like targeted ads are unable to convince the masses to all move to Mastodon, or to one of the hundreds of lesser-known platforms that don't have all the same baggage (in their eyes). It isn't for lack of options. It's because at least a plurality of people are fine with it.

So the argument to effectively nationalize Meta, simply as punishment for getting normies to like their apps so much, because a minority of people just think it's wrong to be good at targeting ads, seems extreme to me.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#984

Post by Marsymars » Fri, Jun 20, 2025, 5:05 AM UTC

xp84 wrote: post #983

Marsymars wrote: post #889

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not much of a socialist either, and I wish that social media was frivolous enough that I didn't see their regulation as a reasonable proposition. The problem isn't access to memes, it's that for various categories of services/interactions, Meta (and presumably WeChat and/or others in other locales) properties effectively are the internet. I've seen all of the following use social media services as their sole meth…

> [...] hosting of the informational/communication platforms for a wide array of local groups/organizations/businesses is something they chose to do, I would argue that it's those people (citizens/companies/orgs) who did the important choosing here, not Meta. It's more cheap and accessible than ever to make a website that isn't dependent on social media, and there are tons of alternatives for connecting groups. The e…

> So the argument to effectively nationalize Meta, simply as punishment for getting normies to like their apps so much, because a minority of people just think it's wrong to be good at targeting ads, seems extreme to me.

I don’t find this to be a good representation of my argument - what I’d call for is very much not punishment, it’s a targeted response to fix no more than the identified problem. (The problem being, people aren’t being afforded a reasonable option to function in society that doesn’t involve a large wealth transfer to facebook.)

I don’t think “effectively nationalize Meta” is a fair reading of my position either - there are plenty of autonomous private companies are non-nationalized and that operate in areas where there’s regulation around pricing.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#985

Post by DreadY2K » Fri, Jun 20, 2025, 8:07 PM UTC

9283409232 wrote: post #56

Workaccount2 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can say from experience and from others who have been in this position (not email, but general services); its around 1-2% of people. Nebula, the answer to the tyranny of Youtube (who works for advertisers), has a I could write pages about this, but I wish I could violently shake all the children (many who are now in their 40's) that so deeply feel entitled to free content on the internet, and scream "If you are not…

Nebula just doesn't have a product I want. I don't care for early access to Youtube videos.

Maybe this isn't the case for you, but a number of creators I watch have some videos that they only upload to Nebula. So it's worth it for me to see those videos I otherwise wouldn't ever get to see.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#986

Post by mrehler » Fri, Jun 20, 2025, 8:36 PM UTC

account-5 wrote: post #418

jeroenhd wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had the same happen with WhatsApp. Turns out you get one chance to get the local file backup right or you're screwed.

Just out of interest, why are you keeping your chat history? What for? All my chats are set to burn after 6 months as standard but most are shorter than this.

I personally keep it all (on iMessage) as a bit of personal history. Trying to see conversations I had with friends and family around fun/important events, searching to see if I ever went on a similar tirade about a product I’m about to send a friend…

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#987

Post by averageRoyalty » Fri, Jun 20, 2025, 11:20 PM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #774

arrowsmith wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't we still call it that now?

As with "Chinese Fire drill" (referring to disorganised and chaotic efforts) the problem is that it's racist. Not like mid-20th century US "People who look different are the enemy" level racist, but it's still objectionable. So we should avoid doing this, "Telephone" is a perfectly good name for this idea, and it's not racist. There are lots of small changes we can make, which make the world slightly better for every…

You've made a gross assumption about the etymology of the term. There are multiple theories about the origin, some of the racist and some of them not.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#988

Post by pfortuny » Sat, Jun 21, 2025, 6:44 AM UTC

kjkjadksj wrote: post #870

pfortuny wrote: post #820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They cost around 0.15€/message in Spain.

No deals sending to the same carrier? That is how it initially was in the US. Some of us had unlimited plans but others had like 400 texts a month paying a rate after, but no quota for texts within the carrier network.

Sorry for the late reply: not that I know of. Just a scam...

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#989

Post by Aerbil313 » Sun, Jun 22, 2025, 10:46 AM UTC

MyPasswordSucks wrote: post #733

Aerbil313 wrote: post #208

Today is the day the notion of the 'internet is free, good and a convenience' is over for the global public. WhatsApp was the first ever primary convenience brought by the advent of the internet - it fulfilled a legitimate need all over the world by providing essentially free, limitless, boundless communication if you had few megabytes of internet in your mobile quota. It is to this day the #1 most used app for a goo…

> WhatsApp was the first ever primary convenience brought by the advent of the internet - it fulfilled a legitimate need all over the world by providing essentially free, limitless, boundless communication if you had few megabytes of internet in your mobile quota. Yes, truly WhatsApp was the first of its kind. It's all the communication of sending a letter through the mail, except delivered electronically - one wonde…

Ok, understand the downvote. Probably should have caveated it with 'in my social circle'.

In my country, there was no universal messenger app circa 2010s except WhatsApp.

Not everybody had a Facebook account to use Facebook Messenger, adults did but children and elderly didn't. Not everybody had an Apple device to use iMessage.

Nobody knew each other's email outside of work and business - the digital revolution came much later than the US to many parts of the world, and email was a tool for personal communication only very briefly, and only if you already knew that person's email, which most likely you didn't.

The reason WhatsApp took off is because it didn't require anything other than a person's phone number - which was usually the only type of digital pointer you had about a person.

SMS was not an option - it was expensive and limited (to this day still is, unlike the US!), only used as a last resort.

I'm sure many countries around the world would share the same sentiment, though maybe not most. Esp. Europe and South America, probably.

Re: WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

#990

Post by jama211 » Sun, Jun 22, 2025, 7:35 PM UTC

SlowTao wrote: post #363

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…

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…

Many good apps use subscription models still to great effect, if their user base is of the right type. E.g. overcast the podcast app. It makes excellent money because of the type of user who pays for it is looking for a premium experience. The $0 app thing is for race to the bottom style app markets, which, let’s be honest, has always been that way.