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WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

(www.nytimes.com)
713 points greenburger | 1 comments | 16 Jun 25 13:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.364s | source
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mrtksn ◴[16 Jun 25 14:07 UTC] No.44289633[source]▶
Does anybody have stats on how many people are O.K. paying for their core services, i.e. how many people pay for paid personal e-mail services?

I just don't want to believe that our services have to be paid for through proxy by giving huge cut to 3rd parties. The quality goes down both as UX and as core content, our attention span is destroyed, our privacy is violated and our political power is being stolen as content gets curated by those who extract money by giving us the "free" services.

It's simply very inefficient. IMHO we should go back to pay for what you use, this can't go on forever. There must be way to turn everything into a paid service where you get what you paid for and have your lives enhanced instead of monetized by proxy.

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irjustin ◴[16 Jun 25 14:14 UTC] No.44289703[source]▶
This is only true if they introduce them. i.e. FB doesn't have a paid service, but obviously Youtube does.

The problem is Whatsapp is a closed ecosystem so unlike email we can't just buy a provider.

And I do pay for youtube. The experience is well worth it and I'm thankful I can afford it (it's not a lot but many can't).

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1. xp84 ◴[16 Jun 25 16:03 UTC] No.44290849[source]▶
“Can’t” is relative. I suspect there are a lot of people who pay for at least one streaming service that isn’t YouTube, but spend more hours watching YouTube in a month than they do watching that service. And of course there’s also the age-old comparison that if someone goes to Starbucks more than twice in a month, they probably spend more there than you would on YouTube Premium, and does that provide the person with as much value as YouTube does?

In my opinion, it’s rarely about “can’t” when we’re talking about 12 bucks a month or whatever. It’s about the psychology: when a free tier exists, people reframe it in their heads that paying for that thing is an extravagance. Relatedly, removing the free tier altogether also has dangerous effects, as people immediately jump to “I can’t believe you’re taking away the free thing I used to have” outrage, while nobody complains about not having free access to say, HBO.