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WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

(www.nytimes.com)
713 points greenburger | 79 comments | 16 Jun 25 13:38 UTC | HN request time: 2.601s | source | bottom
1. b0a04gl ◴[17 Jun 25 06:18 UTC] No.44296183[source]▶
everyone saw this coming the day facebook bought it, but the real issue isn't ads in status . it's that the platform is now locked into meta's attention monetization engine. the founders explicitly said no ads. now not only ads, but paid channels, algorithmic exposure, and user segmentation creeping in. most people won't switch because of network effects, so meta can keep tightening the screws. this isn't about revenue, it's about control. they’re reshaping a private messaging tool into a broadcast platform with tracking hooks. and most users won’t even notice until it’s too embedded to undo
replies(5): >>44296420 #>>44296685 #>>44296698 #>>44296875 #>>44297519 #
2. fouronnes3 ◴[17 Jun 25 07:06 UTC] No.44296420[source]▶
It is becoming painfully apparent that the cycle of enshittification is truly inevitable, right up there next to the second law of thermodynamics.
replies(3): >>44296456 #>>44297644 #>>44299307 #
3. osculum ◴[17 Jun 25 07:23 UTC] No.44296512{3}[source]▶
WhatsApp used to be a paid app, and I paid for it back in the day, as did lots of my friends.
replies(2): >>44296684 #>>44296733 #
4. 6gvONxR4sf7o ◴[17 Jun 25 07:25 UTC] No.44296525{3}[source]▶
Wasn’t it like a dollar a year or something way way back in the day?
replies(1): >>44296661 #
5. rhubarbtree ◴[17 Jun 25 07:25 UTC] No.44296526{3}[source]▶
Seem to remember paying for WhatsApp when I first downloaded it. I’d be happy to keep paying. Just not the amount that they can make from advertising. Solution maybe to ban intrusive advertising so they can’t make a lot of money from it that way?
replies(1): >>44298182 #
6. piva00 ◴[17 Jun 25 07:44 UTC] No.44296627{3}[source]▶
I paid for WhatsApp, USD 1 for year for a few years. They dropped the fee back in 2016.

If WhatsApp wasn't part of Meta they would have found a way, even more it was a very small team before the acquisition already supporting hundreds of MAU, promises were made there wouldn't ever be ads but of course that corporate-consolidation doesn't care about any of that.

7. chgs ◴[17 Jun 25 07:50 UTC] No.44296661{4}[source]▶
Sure. Which would easilly pay the actual operating costs of a messaging platform

However that’s in a world where you don’t pay people tens of billions of dollars for building a relatively simple messaging platform who manage to get the network lock-in.

8. xorcist ◴[17 Jun 25 07:52 UTC] No.44296681{3}[source]▶
Maybe not the best example. Whatsapp started out as a paid service (even if it was comparably cheap, somewhere around a dollar per year comes to mind), but that didn't help them. They have followed the same trajectory as everyone else.

No one exists in isolation, if the market values your user base at ten billion then that is what it is. That also indirectly means someone with deep pockets could spend that order of magnitude of resources to compete with you. No one really wants to know how customer acquisition or sausages are made.

The best counter example is perhaps wikipedia. But they exist in a very special niche. Lots of people have tried foundations in other places only to be outspent by a loss leader.

replies(1): >>44298537 #
9. avhception ◴[17 Jun 25 07:52 UTC] No.44296684{4}[source]▶
And I'd gladly pay again if they would only let me!
10. TheAceOfHearts ◴[17 Jun 25 07:53 UTC] No.44296685[source]▶
The next one to enshittify will be Threads. Right now it's in the honeymoon stage where there aren't any ads so people are encouraged to use it and help grow the platform.
replies(3): >>44296741 #>>44296841 #>>44297891 #
11. iLoveOncall ◴[17 Jun 25 07:56 UTC] No.44296698[source]▶
> most people won't switch because of network effects, so meta can keep tightening the screws.

I don't have high hopes either but people did stop using Messenger in favor of WhatsApp, so they can absolutely stop using WhatsApp too.

The "mistake" (if you're evil) those apps make is that they use your phone number as unique identifier, not a login. So if you switch app, you still have the phone number of all your friends.

replies(1): >>44296750 #
12. bapak ◴[17 Jun 25 08:02 UTC] No.44296733{4}[source]▶
You can't have both a paid app and an app with billions of users.

You can use WhatsApp to talk to people across the world, you bet your ass that nobody would be using it in Indonesia and Brazil if it costed one dollar, vastly diminishing its value.

If you want a free app that only part of users worldwide can afford there's already iMessage.

replies(3): >>44296924 #>>44297109 #>>44297536 #
13. h1fra ◴[17 Jun 25 08:03 UTC] No.44296741[source]▶
This one I don't mind, there is like 1% of actual posters, everyone else are bots or tweet copy pasters
14. SunlitCat ◴[17 Jun 25 08:05 UTC] No.44296750[source]▶
Although those apps are still out there, i really miss those days were all you needed was some kind of unique identifier like a nickname, username or something like that an email address and some fancy password (and you weren't even pestered about to provide a phone number anywhere!).

Those were simpler times. :')

15. EbNar ◴[17 Jun 25 08:08 UTC] No.44296765{3}[source]▶
I did. It was something on the like of 1 €/year. I'm usually cheap as fuck, but I'd gladly pay for something useful not to enshittify.
16. anshumankmr ◴[17 Jun 25 08:23 UTC] No.44296841[source]▶
I used Threads for the first day. And seeing occasionally promo pics that James Gunn posts of Superman. But from my ancedotal experience, Threads is already full of bots, escort services, and random tweeters who I have no interesting in following. I feel Threads might be shut down eventually or integrated into Instagram perhaps.
17. bootsmann ◴[17 Jun 25 08:28 UTC] No.44296875[source]▶
> most people won't switch because of network effects, so meta can keep tightening the screws

Network effects are much much smaller for messaging apps vis-a-vis social networks because there is no problem in incrementally moving your DMs from one place to another.

replies(1): >>44297049 #
18. overfeed ◴[17 Jun 25 08:37 UTC] No.44296924{5}[source]▶
> You can use WhatsApp to talk to people across the world, you bet your ass that nobody would be using it in Indonesia and Brazil if it costed one dollar, vastly diminishing its value.

WhatsApp had payments (or a pilot) pre-acquisiton. At $1/year, it was an amazing value proposition even for those earning $1/day. IIRC, this was when WhatsApp had 3-500M users globally. Interestingly, they allowed people to pay the subscription on behalf of a contact, so the Indonesian expat in Australia could pay for friends and family in Indonesia, and the aervice could have reached a bullion users and 500M/year revenue with about 200 employees

replies(1): >>44297460 #
19. whiplash451 ◴[17 Jun 25 08:58 UTC] No.44297049[source]▶
There is a massive barrier to switching.

In order to switch, you also need to convince your acquaintances to switch.

Good luck with that.

replies(4): >>44297062 #>>44297240 #>>44298255 #>>44300908 #
20. bootsmann ◴[17 Jun 25 09:00 UTC] No.44297062{3}[source]▶
There is no switching involved, you can have two apps installed at the same time. It's not a social network where posting to one means the people posting on the other won't see your stuff.
replies(2): >>44297118 #>>44297245 #
21. homebrewer ◴[17 Jun 25 09:07 UTC] No.44297109{5}[source]▶
Nonsense, it was very popular in my low-income country even back then. They charged something like half a day of income of a manual laborer per year, and everybody was happy to pay since it made your life so much easier. Of course, there's no going back now that everybody is accustomed to using it "for free".
replies(1): >>44297426 #
22. amelius ◴[17 Jun 25 09:09 UTC] No.44297118{4}[source]▶
You are ignoring chat groups here.
23. aleph_minus_one ◴[17 Jun 25 09:33 UTC] No.44297240{3}[source]▶
> In order to switch, you also need to convince your acquaintances to switch.

Rather: you have to to convince yourself to be willing to make it a little bit harder, if necessary, for these acquaintances to contact you. :-)

24. swarnie ◴[17 Jun 25 09:34 UTC] No.44297245{4}[source]▶
You're always going to send the message on the app with 100% coverage.

I'm not switching apps to send the same message to 50% of people and then again to 100% resulting in some switchers getting it twice.

And lets be honest, people dont walk around recommending chat apps to each other. It hasn't been 2010 for at least five years.

25. bapak ◴[17 Jun 25 10:08 UTC] No.44297426{6}[source]▶
If you read other top-level comments, you'll find that many people are simply allergic to paying for software. A lot of people don't have cards or even bank accounts so it's just not possible.
replies(1): >>44297561 #
26. high_na_euv ◴[17 Jun 25 10:15 UTC] No.44297460{6}[source]▶
1 day salary for chat app?

Are you nuts?

replies(3): >>44297671 #>>44297734 #>>44302083 #
27. phyrex ◴[17 Jun 25 10:27 UTC] No.44297519[source]▶
It's been 11 years. If they hadn't been bought they'd have found a different monetization model long ago
replies(3): >>44297725 #>>44297856 #>>44298154 #
28. bonoboTP ◴[17 Jun 25 10:33 UTC] No.44297536{5}[source]▶
In most of the world SMS ("texting") was (or still is) a paid service per message (~5/10/20 cents per message or so, I can't remember exactly and would have to factor in inflation). But it was costly enough that people flocked to WhatsApp to avoid texting costs. Paying 1 USD or 1 EUR per year was a great deal to send unlimited texts.
29. bonoboTP ◴[17 Jun 25 10:37 UTC] No.44297561{7}[source]▶
It replaced SMS, which was costly, so the deal was pretty clear. Back in those days people were quite aware of SMS prices and 1 EUR/year to replace SMS was a no brainer. It was very popular despite the price. For many people, it was the only app they actually bought.
30. fsflover ◴[17 Jun 25 10:54 UTC] No.44297644[source]▶
Unless it's an open, federated system.
replies(2): >>44298217 #>>44298645 #
31. triceratops ◴[17 Jun 25 11:01 UTC] No.44297671{7}[source]▶
Phones were more expensive back then. Someone earning $1/day mostly didn't use WhatsApp.
32. owebmaster ◴[17 Jun 25 11:10 UTC] No.44297725[source]▶
WhatsApp make billions of dollars but Meta wants it to make hundreds of billions. There's no way to appease the dragon.
replies(2): >>44298245 #>>44299261 #
33. owebmaster ◴[17 Jun 25 11:12 UTC] No.44297734{7}[source]▶
People pay months of salary for a phone, what's one dollar for the most used app?
replies(1): >>44297844 #
34. high_na_euv ◴[17 Jun 25 11:29 UTC] No.44297844{8}[source]▶
One day salary for app is a lot.

Only web browser justifies that

replies(2): >>44298735 #>>44305070 #
35. Crosseye_Jack ◴[17 Jun 25 11:31 UTC] No.44297856[source]▶
They kinda did. Before facebook brought them, the app cost $1/£1 per year (iirc your first year was free). Thing is back then MMS and/or texts across borders was expensive, so if you were regularly sending picture messages to people the $1/£1 sub was a no brainer.

Lets wave a magic wand and presume 50% of the user base thought it was also worth $1 a year and it grew just as well as it did (It was growing very well in the UK before the takeover just by word of mouth). That's still just a messaging app that would be raking in $1.5B per year today, and that's before you bolt on any paid cosmetics or upgrades (small things that users don't mind dropping a few more bucks on).

replies(4): >>44298551 #>>44298558 #>>44298592 #>>44301321 #
36. sebastiennight ◴[17 Jun 25 11:35 UTC] No.44297891[source]▶
Ha! You jinxed it!

Introducing ads in Threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44297875

Just got an email about it today from Meta, inviting us to bid on the new platform.

37. ◴[17 Jun 25 12:11 UTC] No.44298154[source]▶
38. upcoming-sesame ◴[17 Jun 25 12:14 UTC] No.44298182{4}[source]▶
I would be happy to pay few bucks a month for an instant messaging service to make sure it's independent. I consider it basic necessity like internet on my phone.

The problem is the fragmentation. We need federation first across all providers and then everyone could choose whatever provider they want to pay for

39. upcoming-sesame ◴[17 Jun 25 12:18 UTC] No.44298217{3}[source]▶
Right. Instant messaging should be considered basic / core utility like ISPs. I can pay a cheap or even a free one and they'll probably sell my data or I can pay more for an ISP that preserve my privacy
replies(1): >>44308991 #
40. xeromal ◴[17 Jun 25 12:20 UTC] No.44298245{3}[source]▶
Curious how whatsapp makes any money besides the handful of companies that use it as a customer support portal
replies(3): >>44298755 #>>44300131 #>>44301145 #
41. upcoming-sesame ◴[17 Jun 25 12:22 UTC] No.44298255{3}[source]▶
This needs a regulatory involvement (for federation)
replies(1): >>44300542 #
42. lou1306 ◴[17 Jun 25 12:52 UTC] No.44298537{4}[source]▶
> but that didn't help them

What do you mean that didn't help them? They were doing quite fine up to the acquisition, no?

replies(2): >>44300214 #>>44300403 #
43. pantulis ◴[17 Jun 25 12:54 UTC] No.44298551{3}[source]▶
I happen to remember paying 1€ for Whatsapp.
44. nielsole ◴[17 Jun 25 12:54 UTC] No.44298558{3}[source]▶
And my understanding back then was that enforcement of payment was via the honour system. It was even possible to pay for your contacts, likely to make it as low friction as possible especially as paying for something on the internet was still a relatively new thing.
replies(1): >>44298931 #
45. parthdesai ◴[17 Jun 25 12:58 UTC] No.44298592{3}[source]▶
There's no way it would've gotten the adoption it did in 3rd world countries if you had to pay $1 per year.
replies(2): >>44299048 #>>44299146 #
46. klabb3 ◴[17 Jun 25 13:02 UTC] No.44298645{3}[source]▶
No system can credibly claim to sustain massive consumer scale until proven in real life.

Even if your technical architecture supports scale and federation, these are just some threats off the top of my head:

- spam, fraud and Sybil attacks, deteriorating the experience for everyone

- infighting, forking among maintainers of core libs and protocols

- maintainers get poached by mega corps

- hostile takeovers of foundations, trademarks and auxiliary institutions

- a single entity within federation gets too large and imposes their own changes that can’t be rejected without losing majority of users or forking (see infighting)

- VC/deep-pocket subsidized competition offering free service (say eg video calls) and unlimited marketing, OEM pre-installs etc, to poach critical mass of users

I love the idea of federated systems. But I think some of us nerds think too much about tech and too little about the social and economic dynamics of the real world.

replies(1): >>44300406 #
47. owebmaster ◴[17 Jun 25 13:09 UTC] No.44298735{9}[source]▶
I use whatsapp for more than 10 years, it would be quite cheap if it cost only 1 day of work and nothing more. That is not possible, tho.
48. owebmaster ◴[17 Jun 25 13:10 UTC] No.44298755{4}[source]▶
WhatsApp integrates into the rest of Meta ads machine so it distribute leads from facebook and instagram directly to whatsapp. It also makes money with spam.
replies(1): >>44302846 #
49. jonpurdy ◴[17 Jun 25 13:26 UTC] No.44298931{4}[source]▶
For $1 per contact, I'd be happy to pay for anyone I know, or ever meet in the future to keep a messaging platform ad-free/user-centric.
50. calt ◴[17 Jun 25 13:37 UTC] No.44299048{4}[source]▶
Thing is, it already was getting that adoption, and network effect can largely take care of the rest. Also, some it’s tied to a real phone number, geographic price differentiation is trivial to implement.
replies(1): >>44299426 #
51. 55555 ◴[17 Jun 25 13:45 UTC] No.44299146{4}[source]▶
I think it grew there when you had to pay. It was still cheaper than the alternative.
52. bachmeier ◴[17 Jun 25 13:53 UTC] No.44299261{3}[source]▶
How many of the people posting here that criticize this move are owners of Meta stock? The number is certainly above 50%, at least for those in the US, since most people with a retirement plan will own Meta in some form. It's the need to satisfy shareholders with new earnings.
replies(3): >>44299581 #>>44299625 #>>44300626 #
53. assbuttbuttass ◴[17 Jun 25 13:57 UTC] No.44299307[source]▶
Only if you think Capitalism is also inevitable
54. kshacker ◴[17 Jun 25 14:07 UTC] No.44299426{5}[source]▶
Ok I paid the 1 buck, or agreed to pay a year later. Those days I lived in India, and my friend kinda forced me to use whatsapp by selling it. I still remember sitting in an auto-rickshaw and downloading the app after the sales pitch :) This must have been 2012, but could it be earlier - maybe.

Point being, I agree with you, it was getting that adoption anyways, even with the fees. And within months, I was hearing this from so many others.

How do I remember? I moved back to US in Feb 2013, so it had to be before that, just can not recall the exact year and month.

55. mikestew ◴[17 Jun 25 14:19 UTC] No.44299581{4}[source]▶
So you’re blaming me because Fidelity bought some Meta for my 401K without me directly knowing?
replies(1): >>44302798 #
56. Coffeewine ◴[17 Jun 25 14:23 UTC] No.44299625{4}[source]▶
What choice do we have? Indeed, I would rather prefer that the companies that comprise the broad market embrace some form of ESG ethos, but that's clearly out of vogue these days. I vote to that extent, but I'm a breathtakingly small portion of the vote when it comes to corporate governance.
replies(1): >>44308931 #
57. fnands ◴[17 Jun 25 15:05 UTC] No.44300131{4}[source]▶
> handful of companies

Go to India. Way more than just a handful of companies using it

58. HappMacDonald ◴[17 Jun 25 15:14 UTC] No.44300214{5}[source]▶
Not well enough to resist being acquired...
59. aendruk ◴[17 Jun 25 15:33 UTC] No.44300403{5}[source]▶
Didn't help them [avoid this fate] is how I read it; that doing quite fine was tragically insufficient to escape the maw.
60. EuAndreh ◴[17 Jun 25 15:33 UTC] No.44300406{4}[source]▶
Despite its flaws and issues, email is federated and has been working at scale for decades.
replies(1): >>44306144 #
61. alternatex ◴[17 Jun 25 15:48 UTC] No.44300542{4}[source]▶
That already happened in EU with trying to force leading communications platforms to integrate with at least one competitor. I remember an initiative to make WhatsApp integrate with (wait for it..) Skype.

I'm not sure how or why it fizzled out.

62. owebmaster ◴[17 Jun 25 15:55 UTC] No.44300626{4}[source]▶
That is not my case. If Meta had minted thousands of millionaires in my country I would have way less problems with them
63. barbazoo ◴[17 Jun 25 16:26 UTC] No.44300908{3}[source]▶
When I did it, because my phone supports multiple apps being installed at the same time, I was able to do it gradually. Most people I know do have a second option to reach them so it wasn't a problem at all.
64. nathancahill ◴[17 Jun 25 16:49 UTC] No.44301145{4}[source]▶
On a global level it's completely pervasive.
65. mike_hearn ◴[17 Jun 25 17:06 UTC] No.44301321{3}[source]▶
> the app cost $1/£1 per year

Not really. They claimed they'd charge this but then kept giving away free time to huge numbers of people because this wasn't an actual business model, they did it just to slow their growth down when they were running out of server capacity. It's discussed in some interview with the founder, iirc.

66. overfeed ◴[17 Jun 25 18:14 UTC] No.44302083{7}[source]▶
Did you know people below the poverty line would by $20 S40 feature phones just to be able to run WhatsApp? The other 2G phones cost less than half that amount, but you had to pay $0.1-$0.2 per SMS sent, in that light, spending $1 per year for WhatsApp's unlimited messages on a PAYG data package was a steal.

So no, I am not nuts, you just didn't think through the value proposition.

replies(1): >>44308368 #
67. bachmeier ◴[17 Jun 25 19:17 UTC] No.44302798{5}[source]▶
Well, I'm saying we should be hesitant to immediately throw out blame for pursuing profit, because it's not just more money for Zuckerberg and other billionaires. If retirement funds were growing at 2%, the same people criticizing this decision would be looking for alternative investment vehicles.
68. phyrex ◴[17 Jun 25 19:20 UTC] No.44302846{5}[source]▶
WhatsApp makes absolutely no money with spam. There isn't a per-message cost or however you think that would work
replies(2): >>44303639 #>>44304830 #
69. hermanzegerman ◴[17 Jun 25 20:35 UTC] No.44303639{6}[source]▶
There absolutely is a per-conversation cost for marketing messages.

https://business.whatsapp.com/products/platform-pricing?coun...

See also here

>With marketing messages, you pay for each message that is delivered to a receiver you chose within five days of being sent.

https://faq.whatsapp.com/178447635241069?cms_id=178447635241...

70. owebmaster ◴[17 Jun 25 22:47 UTC] No.44304830{6}[source]▶
You are wrong.
71. overfeed ◴[17 Jun 25 23:27 UTC] No.44305070{9}[source]▶
> Only web browser justifies that

There's a surprisingly number of people whose usage of the Internet is exclusively through WhatsApp, and may not even know what a "browser" is or how to use it to get in touch with their contacts.

72. klabb3 ◴[18 Jun 25 02:30 UTC] No.44306144{5}[source]▶
I agree. That’s an interesting model for chat. But remember, modern email is quite complex when you add all the standards for authenticity and security together, as well as informal requirements like spam filtering. But even if self-hosting were a pain, it’d still be an improvement over today’s fragmentation-by-app status quo.
replies(1): >>44307462 #
73. fsflover ◴[18 Jun 25 07:29 UTC] No.44307462{6}[source]▶
> But even if self-hosting were a pain, it’d still be an improvement

Why hypothetical? Matrix already works sufficiently well.

replies(1): >>44308988 #
74. high_na_euv ◴[18 Jun 25 10:03 UTC] No.44308368{8}[source]▶
Why not any other free chat app e.g discord?
replies(1): >>44315671 #
75. account42 ◴[18 Jun 25 11:30 UTC] No.44308931{5}[source]▶
How would being actively discriminatory against a large part of the population help anything?
76. account42 ◴[18 Jun 25 11:40 UTC] No.44308988{7}[source]▶
Not at global scale it doesn't.
replies(1): >>44309055 #
77. account42 ◴[18 Jun 25 11:41 UTC] No.44308991{4}[source]▶
> or I can pay more for an ISP that preserve my privacy

In what alternate universe?

78. fsflover ◴[18 Jun 25 11:51 UTC] No.44309055{8}[source]▶
Are you aware of any particular bottleneck?
79. overfeed ◴[19 Jun 25 05:18 UTC] No.44315671{9}[source]▶
Network effects, similar to present-day Facetime in the US. There's Zoom and Google Meet, but if your family and friends are already FaceTiming, you're pressured into buying a iDevice.