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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WhatsApp getting ads is great news! WhatsApp, and any other meta/facebook/for-profit-social-network will never be a good product. Therefore, the second best alternative is for it to be as bad as possible, so people finally change to worthy alternatives.
What is the alternative here? Don’t know, perhaps Signal, though the devs are not welcoming at all. The UI is absolute shit. Looks like UI for old people, huge margins and empty space. My screen fits like 3 chats. A compact theme would take a few hours to create and vastly improve the product, but ya…
delta.chat
The enshittify proof alternative!
…Electron inside.
Would signal also work?
I believe it is centralized but it is certainly an alternative to WhatsApp. My understanding is that it’s encrypted and privacy centric.
Yes, encrypted chats packetised over SMTP layer.
Smooth as silk for a year and a half.
Send pics, voicemails, files, videos, and video-chat(via Jitsi integration)
Arcane-chat app does location sharing too.
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.
@Auth
So that’s why we donate to @signalapp
@MazonnaCara89It’s not very easy to solve the issue of infinite growth in a world with finite resources. The fundamental issue is that it’s just not physically possible, but they keep trying. Either we continue this cycle and eventually destroy the planet irreversibly, or we acknowledge that maybe money isn’t everything, and that maybe [the vast majority of] people aren’t inherently egoitistical monsters, and we move on to different systems.
The enshittification process in a nutshell.
WhatsApp was not free and already had a massive user base before Facebook bought it.
Hope this will turn people to alternatives.
Wasn’t it like a quid to sign up?
Yeah it was something like that, very low price compared to what SMS were charged for.
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.
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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.
none of the clients seem to work on my phone
Hm, first time I hear that one to be honest.
I hope Signal does this too!
- no one ever.
Looks like I need an alternative. An alternative for which there is still no prospect of enshitification. Which services are neither American, Chinese nor Russian? Anything from Europe?
Signal is American but run by a non profit so it can’t be sold and is open source under GPL3 without a CLA from what I can see so it’s unlikely they would ever go closed source.
Will check it out, thank you!
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.
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.
Always a bit shocked to learn people still use WhatsApp.
All our clients use it. It’s bloody annoying. I have dozens who use WhatsApp, and like three who use Signal. Ironically, the three that use Signal also use WhatsApp and guess which one they use to contact us?
It’s a problem when it’s got mass market traction to get people to switch. I’m still trying to get off Messenger but some people insist on it… Going to have to get firm about that.
All of my community groups are on there, including the school parents one. My choice is to not participate in the community or have Whatsapp… Or worse, Facebook.
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.
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.
Some of us don’t have another choice. All (but 1) of my support groups are on WhatsApp and only 1 is on 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
If they did not, they at least ignored that instinct and kept using WhatsApp…
How do we get people to stop ignoring their better instincts in things like this?
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
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These ads on messaging services are out of control
so… back to owl mail then?
Facebook shit gonna do facebook shit
