←back to thread

713 points greenburger | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.45s | source
Show context
leokennis ◴[] 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.

replies(11): >>44289688 #>>44291579 #>>44293355 #>>44295177 #>>44295633 #>>44295658 #>>44295802 #>>44295981 #>>44296145 #>>44296190 #>>44299859 #
1. crossroadsguy ◴[] No.44299859[source]
In India a palm will pop out of the phone screen every few hours and deliver a tight slap and people might still use it.

Even banks et cetera are making it the first class communication medium especially for OTP (which technically is safer than SMS but a glaring lock into a desk-less foreign company and at the same time the “OTP” can literally be the single point to take over someone’s almost entire life - including almost every single paisa). Every other day I am shown a sneaky lightning popup or two asking me to consent to send everything or something on WhatsApp. Sometimes the popup is about something entirely else but there’s an already checked checkbox with WhatsApp consent. Calling it bizarre will be an understatement.