WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

Alice Newton-Rex, head of product at WhatsApp: “Alongside of private messaging, people were saying they wanted to hear more about topics, teams and organizations across WhatsApp.”

- I am pretty sure NO ONE asked to hear about more topics and organizations across whatsapp.

I'd literally PAY for a mod taking away the "updates" tab. I don't care about stories nor I want channels shoved in my face. I just need to message someone, from time to time.

I found the solution by convincing all my friends and family, one by one, to move to Signal. I still use Whatsapp for people who did not migrate, but it's surprisingly possible (if not easy) to convince people to use another app

Same here. The trick is to never mention "privacy", "no ads", or anything similar (which has negative perceived value).

If you talk about that stuff, people will dilly-dally with the usual "well I already have too many apps, I'm not sure I want to install one more"

I tell people that the video calls are better (which was true in my experience, back when I still used WA). Instant install

The fun fact is that those people have 100+ apps on their phones, which run in the background, draining their batteries, tracking the sh*t out of them, never actually use them (get value out of them) and they think zero about their privacy (probably use gmail or the sorts). Someone asked me to install Viber and it had 30 pages of advertisers/data brokers. I won't share a bowl of poop with them (WhatsApp, Viber, etc.) "Meet them where they are" doesn't work if they are in a pool of privacy-poop.

I don't know about iOS but a modern Android will periodically delete permissions from apps you aren't using, the app stays installed but it's now just a harmless icon and wasted storage space as I understand it.

You also have the ability to easily setup a "Work profile" that's functionally like a second user with its own apps that don't talk to your normal profile apps, and you can shut the whole work profile off when you don't need it so the apps can't even run until you turn it back on. My preferred way of setting it up is with Shelter installed via FDroid.