WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

June 18, 2012 -> https://blog.whatsapp.com/why-we-don-t-sell-ads

Almost 13 years to the day!

I find it really frustrating that I am not able to avoid using whatsapp due to how popular it is to the point that it’s become the go-to communication channel for most things :/

Indeed. And the worse isn't that we'll have to deal with ads. The worse is that people will stick around despite the ads, which only goes to show how powerful the grip of Meta on our societies is.

... and once they have proof of they power because WhatsApp use keeps increasing despite all the enshittification done in the last few months, they'll feel encouraged to enshittify further in even bolder ways.

That blog post is very interesting in number of ways!

The principles they enlisted

> Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. – Tyler Durden, Fight Club

> Advertising isn't just the disruption of aesthetics, the insults to your intelligence and the interruption of your train of thought.

> Remember, when advertising is involved you the user are the product.

---

That said, building a product and selling it for 19 Billion dollars in 2012 was essentially a success of capitalism over those principles. There shouldn't be any complaints, since FB didn't kill it, and the number of users kept increasing.