- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.zip
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.zip
WhatsApp is rolling out ads. In an update on Monday, Meta announced that it will now show ads from businesses through its Stories-like status feature.
Meta says it will tailor the ads to your interests by using “limited” information, including your country or city, language, the channels you follow, and how you interact with ads on the platform. You can also change your ad preferences from Meta’s Accounts Center.
This isn’t the only change Meta is making to WhatsApp. The company will also start showing promoted channels when you click on the Explore button to find new ones to follow. It’s also rolling out the ability to subscribe to channels to “receive exclusive updates” as well.
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Do you have WhatsApp? No Telegram?
I dont have that one, none of the clients seem to work on my phone… Wechat?
Cant verify, SMS doesnt get through. LINE? lol I dont have a japanese number. Kakaotalk?
No… …discord?
Sure!
Shit he’s 30 seconds from finding out Im a furry.
none of the clients seem to work on my phone
Hm, first time I hear that one to be honest.
When I tried to move my family to Telegram, only 2 managed to successfully install and verify a client.
What on earth are you using instead of phones?
Half of them are boomers or have the tech literacy of boomers.
I’m highly technical and telegram refused to auth me on first install, no workaround
I’ve never had this problem. If they don’t want to download Signal and can’t cope with basic SMS then tough luck.
SMS has issues if youre traveling a lot or want to send large files. Nobody has Signal and Im not going to ask someone I just met to install a new app.
SMS has issues if youre traveling a lot or want to send large files
Okay email?
Im not going to ask someone I just met to install a new app
They can only say no. And if they do, their loss.
Asking for someones email when they ask for your whatsapp is weird.
It would be nice if I didnt need a dozen chat apps,each with their own faults, but being able to communicate with friends and family is more important than software evangelizing.
Asking for someones email when they ask for your whatsapp is weird.
Yes it is. But that’s not what I was suggesting.
being able to communicate with friends and family
I made the switch 6 months ago and can communicate just fine. Friends and family.
more important than software evangelizing
Its not evangelising, I’ve just chosen not to use WhatsApp, FB messenger etc. If other people want to surrender their personal data to Meta have at it.
I am glad your friends and family are more technically literate than mine or the people I meet.
Good news good Signal.
Only if you donate. Otherwise bad news, Signal.
Have they removed that dogshit crypto they added a few years ago? Haven’t donated since.
Signal was never more than a stepping stone anyway. Centralised privacy services, that can be taken down by any government, are doomed to fail under surveillance capitalfascism.
I recommend https://simplex.chat/
I recommend you have a look at this guy’s Twitter profile and reconsider.
This is a bit of an ad hominem. SimpleX is great software, whether the guy’s a Nazi asshole or not. Not a 1:1 substitute for WhatsApp like Signal is though.
What does this mean? What’s on his twitter profile?
deleted by creator
Bunch of right wing stuff, some anti vax stuff, the usual
I’m surprised. He didn’t come across this way to me on Github, or in group chats and interviews he’s done. I want to say that, as a non-American, maybe he doesn’t know the kind of things Trump has done here, but then it seems like everyone knows what Trump has done here.
No idea, all I see as options now for Paypal and credit card.
It’s still there, buried in the settings. TBF I wouldn’t expect them to remove it, because some people probably do use it.
deleted by creator
To be fair, I am shocked… Not to see a Pikachu face in the comments.
Thank you for your assistance.
As somebody that doesn’t use what’s app, I’m shocked it didn’t have ads already.
delta.chat
The enshittify proof alternative!
Yes, encrypted chats packetised over SMTP layer.
Smooth as silk for a year and a half.
Send pics, voicemails, files, videos, and video-chat(via Jitsi integration)
Arcane-chat app does location sharing too.
I’ve been off of WhatsApp for about 7 years. My only communication options with everyone else are phone calls or Signal, and for those that will not use at least signal, we’ll, you can always call me.
I have arcane chat, but only 1 friend of mine from church uses it with me.
…Electron inside.
Would signal also work?
I believe it is centralized but it is certainly an alternative to WhatsApp. My understanding is that it’s encrypted and privacy centric.
… So encrypted email?
I wonder whether Meta will try to lock down cross platform access now.
Currently Beeper still works everywhere and EU’S DMA (Digital Markets Act) still has WhatsApp as gate keeper which is required to interpolate with other chat apps. However “WhatsApp stories” are entirely different from chat so that means they can block all of that and this is probably how Meta will approach future WhatsApp updates - more shit to lock people in WhatsApp that isnt directly chat related because thats the only way to show people ads.
Ahh meta!!! Sighs.
whatsapp-free since 2023!
I’m forced to use WhatsApp chat so I keep it installed begrudgingly. But who the fuck is using WhatsApp stories?
I use Beeper which shows me a unified view of whatsapp and Signal and others. whatsapp itself has zero permissions on my phone. I hate that I need to have it at all but Europe is deep into that. Sigh.
Whatsapp is popular a lot in many parts of the world. In India, WhatsApp is almost the defacto standard messaging app with Telegram probably flying in a far second. I doubt I know anyone who even uses stuff like Signal or Threema or any of the alternatives.
Doesn’t help that Telegram media downloads are throttled by some Indian ISPs (looking at you, Jio)
There was a big uproar amongst normies when the WhatsApp TOS changed…but people forget quickly and prefer convenience. That was our one chance to convert everyone over.
I stopped using it for 3 years, then I had to interact with a surgeon through it and reconnected with a fee people who still use it. I fucking hate using it
Isn’t Beeper another security risk? They also store your data on their cloud, and it’s not encrypted during the bridge process.
But then aren’t you trusting your credentials to yet another application? That seems like a bad idea…
Fair point. The simplest answer is thrt any other business cannot possibly be as evil as meta, so even worst case is a net win.
At least normal European people are locked into a platform that doesn’t care what device you’re using, unlike iMessage - so it’s not all bad
I’m an iPhone user and I’ve never met anyone that gave a shit about iMessage. In the past ten years.
I’m an android user and I semi-frequently meet iPhone users who show anything between surprise and downright disdain towards me because I don’t have the right color of bubble.
It’s never the other way around.
Where do you find these peeps?
Sewer oulets, I’m guessing.
Work, school (not anymore, but while I was in school), local events where I meet people, friends, etc.
Who is forcing you?
Only my family, friends and work. But I’m working on cutting them out of my life.
This is such great news! More ammo to use when trying to convince friends and family to move away from WhatsApp
Facebook shit gonna do facebook shit
I hope Signal does this too!
- no one ever.
-
provide free app at a loss
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grow massive user base and market share
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squeeze your userbase for every cent they’re worth
Every single time. We got to solve the funding issue some how, I dont want to live in a future run by ads.
It’s not just the funding, it’s the business overall. Public companies need to show growing revenues year to year, and worse: growing revenues with a minimum yield. A product can grow by attracting more users up to a certain point. Then the only way to grow is by making more money out of the same users base. If the revenue is based on ads:
- Extend the product so that the user’s engagement increases (channels/others kind).
- Add paying features (freemium approach, that includes blue stars or whatever the hell you want it to look like…)
- Serve them ads
Freemium is not always working well and Meta never used it. They have no new great idea to extend the product without eating their other products users bases. So the only one left is more ads.
Funding is not the issue, for-profit companies are. Non-profit is the way to go. Federation is even better as individuals/families/small organizations can run their own servers.-
WhatsApp was not free and already had a massive user base before Facebook bought it.
Hope this will turn people to alternatives.
Wasn’t it like a quid to sign up?
Yeah it was something like that, very low price compared to what SMS were charged for.
I’d forgotten about this!!
The enshittification process in a nutshell.
It’s not very easy to solve the issue of infinite growth in a world with finite resources. The fundamental issue is that it’s just not physically possible, but they keep trying. Either we continue this cycle and eventually destroy the planet irreversibly, or we acknowledge that maybe money isn’t everything, and that maybe [the vast majority of] people aren’t inherently egoitistical monsters, and we move on to different systems.
Eastern Europe loves the app Viber that Rakuten bought, which has had ads for years.
People LOVE a walled garden of their friends are there, too.
@Auth
So that’s why we donate to @signalapp
@MazonnaCara89WhatsApp was charging $1-$3 per year before Facebook’s acquisition. They had 600M+ users and a team of twelve people. It was beautiful while it lasted.
Hopefully we can carry out the original mission with Signal.
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These ads on messaging services are out of control
so… back to owl mail then?
What app?
Really though, what was the main use for this kind of chat app? Genuinely since I assume there is one, I just don’t know it since I never had a reason to use it. Was it encrypted? Cause I get using specifically encrypted messaging systems, but if it’s not, was it that good of an option over other chat apps?
It was SMS, but better. It has been the message platform of choice for pretty much everyone in my country for well over a decade, not as many options existed back then.
I hate how every single messaging app with SMS integration eventually drops it, sending me back to whatever stock bullshit came with my phone.
Seems like I’m not in the target audience for these ads. I have absolutely zero clue what any of the things mentioned above are. I use WhatsApp to send messages.
