WhatsApp is rolling out ads. In an update on Monday, Meta announced that it will now show ads from businesses through its Stories-like status feature.
Meta says it will tailor the ads to your interests by using “limited” information, including your country or city, language, the channels you follow, and how you interact with ads on the platform. You can also change your ad preferences from Meta’s Accounts Center.
This isn’t the only change Meta is making to WhatsApp. The company will also start showing promoted channels when you click on the Explore button to find new ones to follow. It’s also rolling out the ability to subscribe to channels to “receive exclusive updates” as well.
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This is such great news! More ammo to use when trying to convince friends and family to move away from WhatsApp
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provide free app at a loss
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grow massive user base and market share
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squeeze your userbase for every cent they’re worth
Every single time. We got to solve the funding issue some how, I dont want to live in a future run by ads.
Eastern Europe loves the app Viber that Rakuten bought, which has had ads for years.
People LOVE a walled garden of their friends are there, too.
WhatsApp was not free and already had a massive user base before Facebook bought it.
Hope this will turn people to alternatives.
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Do you have WhatsApp? No Telegram?
I dont have that one, none of the clients seem to work on my phone… Wechat?
Cant verify, SMS doesnt get through. LINE? lol I dont have a japanese number. Kakaotalk?
No… …discord?
Sure!
Shit he’s 30 seconds from finding out Im a furry.
I hope Signal does this too!
- no one ever.
Always a bit shocked to learn people still use WhatsApp.
I had to do it because many use it and I was not. If you want to communicate in certain parts of the world, this is the only way. I wish everyone would go to Signal or Telegram but everyone are not me.
It’s like the de facto messaging app for a good portion of the world
I have a buddy in Japan who was a foreign exchange student here in the U.S. years ago. When he went back home I had to use Line to talk to him, I tried for years to get him to use Signal and after years of nagging he agreed to start using Discord… well at least it’s not Whatsapp…
It’s really big in Europe for some reason.
One of the first movers, so many chat groups are still on there and it’s very difficult to make people move. Many people simply don’t care about privacy, ads, user experience and what not, they just want the convenience of staying in the chat groups they are already in. A shame really.
Some of us don’t have another choice. All (but 1) of my support groups are on WhatsApp and only 1 is on signal.
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I forgot WhatsApp existed.
Guess its shittier now.
Mhm. Yup.
It’s the go-to messagging app in my country for historical reasons.
I’ve never used whatsapp and don’t even remember what it’s for. Somehow life goes on.
These ads on messaging services are out of control
so… back to owl mail then?
I wonder whether Meta will try to lock down cross platform access now.
Currently Beeper still works everywhere and EU’S DMA (Digital Markets Act) still has WhatsApp as gate keeper which is required to interpolate with other chat apps. However “WhatsApp stories” are entirely different from chat so that means they can block all of that and this is probably how Meta will approach future WhatsApp updates - more shit to lock people in WhatsApp that isnt directly chat related because thats the only way to show people ads.
Considering the zero byte article using anything from Meta is a FAFO moment.
I literally just got my senior citizen dad off Skype and over to WhatsApp like 2 years ago… Ain’t no way I can get him over to signal
“We will never show you ads in WhatsApp. We promise”. --Facebook when they bought WhatsApp and promised the previous owner not to force ads in the app…
I wonder if anyone believed them at the time
What app?
Really though, what was the main use for this kind of chat app? Genuinely since I assume there is one, I just don’t know it since I never had a reason to use it. Was it encrypted? Cause I get using specifically encrypted messaging systems, but if it’s not, was it that good of an option over other chat apps?
It was SMS, but better. It has been the message platform of choice for pretty much everyone in my country for well over a decade, not as many options existed back then.
I hate how every single messaging app with SMS integration eventually drops it, sending me back to whatever stock bullshit came with my phone.
Facebook shit gonna do facebook shit
I’m forced to use WhatsApp chat so I keep it installed begrudgingly. But who the fuck is using WhatsApp stories?
I use Beeper which shows me a unified view of whatsapp and Signal and others. whatsapp itself has zero permissions on my phone. I hate that I need to have it at all but Europe is deep into that. Sigh.
Isn’t Beeper another security risk? They also store your data on their cloud, and it’s not encrypted during the bridge process.
Whatsapp is popular a lot in many parts of the world. In India, WhatsApp is almost the defacto standard messaging app with Telegram probably flying in a far second. I doubt I know anyone who even uses stuff like Signal or Threema or any of the alternatives.
Doesn’t help that Telegram media downloads are throttled by some Indian ISPs (looking at you, Jio)
At least normal European people are locked into a platform that doesn’t care what device you’re using, unlike iMessage - so it’s not all bad
I’m an iPhone user and I’ve never met anyone that gave a shit about iMessage. In the past ten years.
I’m an android user and I semi-frequently meet iPhone users who show anything between surprise and downright disdain towards me because I don’t have the right color of bubble.
It’s never the other way around.
Where do you find these peeps?
Sewer oulets, I’m guessing.
Work, school (not anymore, but while I was in school), local events where I meet people, friends, etc.
There was a big uproar amongst normies when the WhatsApp TOS changed…but people forget quickly and prefer convenience. That was our one chance to convert everyone over.
I stopped using it for 3 years, then I had to interact with a surgeon through it and reconnected with a fee people who still use it. I fucking hate using it
But then aren’t you trusting your credentials to yet another application? That seems like a bad idea…
Fair point. The simplest answer is thrt any other business cannot possibly be as evil as meta, so even worst case is a net win.
