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WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

(www.nytimes.com)
713 points greenburger | 4 comments | 16 Jun 25 13:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.425s | 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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filoleg ◴[16 Jun 25 14:18 UTC] No.44289745[source]▶
I don’t have the actual stats, but, sadly, it seems like a gigantic chunk of the “i would rather pay a small fee to use a service rather than paying for it with exposure to ads” crowd is mostly all-talk. And I am saying this as someone who genuinely believes in the “small fee instead of paying with ad exposure” approach.

The one specific example of this that made me think so is the Youtube Premium situation. So many people in the “a fee instead of ads” crowd consumes YT for hours a day, but so far I’ve only met one person (not counting myself) who actually pays for YT Premium.

And yes, a major chunk of the people I talked about this with were FAANG engineers, so it isn’t like they cannot afford it. But it felt like they were more interested in complaining about the ad-funded-services landscape and muse on their stances around it, as opposed to actually putting their money where their mouth is.

All I can say is, I am not paying for YT Premium out of some ideological standpoint or love for Google (not even close). It has genuinely been just worth it for me many times over in the exact practical ways I was expecting it to.

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Guest9081239812 ◴[16 Jun 25 20:51 UTC] No.44293277[source]▶
My site has about 30k active registered users a day. The vast majority are long term members that have been on the site for years, so they're quite dedicated to the service. Even so, only about 50 of them pay to remove advertising.
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stavros ◴[16 Jun 25 21:01 UTC] No.44293363[source]▶
How much do you make per user on ads, and how much is the subscription?
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1. Guest9081239812 ◴[16 Jun 25 21:50 UTC] No.44293727[source]▶
It only generates about 15k a year in ad revenue. It's fairly low revenue because:

1. Users are spread around the world. This isn't a site with 70% US visitors.

2. The majority of users run ad block, and this continues to rise.

3. Ad rates plummet each year. I earn about 5x less on the site now, than in the past, with the same number of active users, and 3x as many advertisements.

I've tried all the major advertising networks. I setup header bidding and signed direct deals with large networks, such as AppNexus, Amazon, Yahoo, AOL, etc. At the end of the day, ads do not pay well for my audience.

Users can pay $3/mo to remove advertising. Yes, I'm aware that's $36/yr, when the average registered user is generating less than $0.50/yr in ad revenue. About 30% of paying users choose to pay higher than $3/mo for no additional benefit (they can pay any amount they wish). I also have some individuals that have paid thousands of dollars.

What would happen if I offered a $1/yr plan for an ad free experience, so it's more inline with ad revenues? I honestly don't know, but I would guess I would lose a few of the $3/mo paying users, and gain less than 100 users paying $1/yr, so it would likely be net negative.

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2. tobias3 ◴[16 Jun 25 22:36 UTC] No.44294015[source]▶
This illustrates a bit the price discrimination "problem" that is solved via ads. With ads, higher-income people probably earn you more money automatically.

With the fee to remove advertising, you'd need to use all the price discrimination tricks to maximize revenue. E.g., have sales, have discount codes, etc., and it would still not be close to the price discrimination possible via ads.

I also wonder what the income of OP's bubble was when they were not paying for WhatsApp.

3. account42 ◴[18 Jun 25 09:58 UTC] No.44308339[source]▶
So you are overcharging paid users by over 500% and complaining that not many take that deal? See that's the problem with all these "people won't pay for ad-free services" arguments. It almost always boils down this kind of abusive pricing.

And honestly, what you could make from users through ads is not what I care about. You are making zero from me through ads because I block them everywhere and that is not negotiable. A reasonable price would be costs + modest margin not how much you could grab out of my pocket.

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4. Guest9081239812 ◴[19 Jun 25 01:40 UTC] No.44314709[source]▶
I'm a little confused where you're trying to go with this comment. I develop and maintain a service that has been used by millions of people. I make less net profit than a part-time McDonald's employee. Is this not "costs + modest margin"? Where is the abusive pricing?