WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

Surprised it took them this long

they got so lucky with whatsbook taking over entire countries, they were swimming in money just selling support channels to gov and big companies.

literal chat dialog tree with 4 options that is not connected to anything for around 250k/year.

They were working on it in 2019 when I left, I thought it was tested in one country after that and then it got shelved. IIRC, it needed a ToS change and there was too much pushback.

I had been voluntold to be on the ads team, because I had sent a list of things that needed to be done to make ads doable and not terrible. Of course, none of my ideas were deemed feasible at the time, including figuring our the ToS stuff, because no use building a product you can't launch and ToS changes aren't easy.

> things that needed to be done to make ads doable and not terrible ... none of my ideas were deemed feasible at the time

Don't sell yourself short ... they did all the things to make ads doable it was just not feasible to make them not terrible.

I mean, they didn't, at least at the time, because they couldn't launch it.

In my mind, early focus on ToS could have possibly gotten the change more palletable/directed the project towards more palletable choices or perhaps more likely gotten to the cancellation decision faster and people could work on different things.

Line messaging app that is popular in Japan has had adverts for years. They aren't very intrusive. I am fine with it. They also sell "stickers" (elaborate emojis) as an alternative revenue stream. They are surprisingly popular amoung all ages. If WhatsApp takes a page from their book, I will be fine with it. I have never paid a penny to FaceBook/Meta for running this amazing, free service. Nothing is free in this world.