"Your personal messages, calls and statuses, they will remain end-to-end encrypted," says the Facebook executive in charge of WhatsApp.
A company representative adds that it has "no plans to place ads in chats and personal messages." Plans, of course, could change in the future.
As many here have noted, WhatsApp is the dominant communication platform for many people, and many businesses, particularly outside the US. In the short run, almost none of them will be able to leave the platform. In the longer term, so many of them are upset about the introduction of intrusive ads that it could well become "the beginning of the end" for the platform.
Social media platforms can rise and fall.