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WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

(www.nytimes.com)
713 points greenburger | 7 comments | 16 Jun 25 13:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.853s | source | bottom
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yakkomajuri ◴[17 Jun 25 12:56 UTC] No.44298568[source]▶
I guess this was expected, but it makes me feel really powerless in the sense that I can't really move away from WhatsApp.

I have a couple of friends that I message via Signal and even convinced my dad to use it a while back, but here in Brazil WhatsApp is _everything_, and I doubt most people care about this at all. In my case, I'd love to just go over to Signal fully but then I couldn't talk to family, friends, and probably couldn't even book a haircut or pay my taxes (my accountant messages me on WhatsApp).

It's one of those where unless just about everyone were to go over to Signal, most people won't, because keeping track of messages in two apps is quite hard.

That leaves me stuck in this ecosystem, which is quite sad.

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1. Moldoteck ◴[17 Jun 25 14:51 UTC] No.44299980[source]▶
you should still slowly push for more ppl in family to use signal. In moldova as example most ppl used viber, but moved gradually to telegram and whatsapp. I've convinced my family/friends to use telegram in the past, but I'll slowly help them use Signal more. Changes rarely happen fast
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2. ndr ◴[17 Jun 25 15:29 UTC] No.44300368[source]▶
What makes Signal less at risk than WhatsApp? Are they profitable in other ways? Are they at the same risk of capture?
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3. alternatex ◴[17 Jun 25 15:43 UTC] No.44300497[source]▶
Non-profit and actually quite economically efficient per user. Once WhatsApp was bought by Meta the writing was on the wall. I moved out of it immediately and I'm surprised people are caught off-guard by this news.

I suppose there's little guarantee Signal won't be sold, but an ultra popular app with no profit, owned by a single bloke (WhatsApp) was the last thing I expected to be a sustainable platform for my communications. Same reason I've never looked at Telegram.

4. palata ◴[17 Jun 25 16:29 UTC] No.44300940[source]▶
Signal is open source, for one, so if Signal started pushing for ads, then someone could fork it into a new service.

In my opinion, the goal is not to find "the perfect monopoly". The goal is to be versatile. Right now, Signal is better than WhatsApp (be it just because it does not belong to Meta), and using Signal is absolutely trivial (it can even be used in parallel to WhatsApp).

I use Signal today, if in 2 years Signal goes into surveillance capitalism and ads, well I'll move to the next one. And then the next one. It's not like it requires a PhD to use a clone of a messaging app.

5. jama211 ◴[22 Jun 25 19:43 UTC] No.44349696[source]▶
Is there functionality whatsapp provides (even if it’s really unrelated to software features, just by happenstance due to its widespread usage) that signal doesn’t currently provide for? If so, it’s a losing battle. No one would go backwards in functionality unless the ads got egregious.
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6. Moldoteck ◴[24 Jun 25 10:49 UTC] No.44364749[source]▶
imo there's only one important feature - chat backups. WA allows doing periodical backups into google drive to not lose the data
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7. jama211 ◴[26 Jun 25 19:14 UTC] No.44390394{3}[source]▶
What you consider important may not be what others consider important. Seems like you know of other features that others find important you’re just not wanting to mention those because it undermines your point.