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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: 0.413s | source
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leokennis ◴[16 Jun 25 14:05 UTC] No.44289612[source]▶
At least in The Netherlands, WhatsApp could show a 60 second unskippable modal ad video on every launch, and still get away with it due to network effects.

If you’re not on WhatsApp, no updates or news from your kids school, your sports team, your family, your car dealership etc. for you.

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1. wtmt ◴[16 Jun 25 17:32 UTC] No.44291579[source]▶
It’s similar in India. Even many businesses only use WhatsApp for orders and communications with customers. Heck, even the police use it to communicate between their people and with complainants/victims. Politicians use it between their party people and to send messages to the public. The average person on the street no longer knows what an SMS is or how to use it.

But I manage without WhatsApp (it’s also a privileged position to do so). Not having WhatsApp also helps avoid seeing all the junk and misinformation that people forward on it without any thought. There’s actually a name for this in India: “WhatsApp University”, which is a derogatory term for how people believe anything they read on WhatsApp and share it around without any analysis or thought or skepticism whatsoever.