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WhatsApp Will Start Showing Ads
- cbowal 6y ago"[The messages] will not be advertisements for commercial purposes, but rather for services, always linked to the community or the app."
- FeatureIncomple 6y agoYeah, the title is misleading
- AlexandrB 6y agoThis article is translated from Spanish using some kind of AI (see disclaimer at the top of the article). Because of this it's not clear what this article is actually talking about, ads or a new type of notification.
- willcipriano 6y agoIndeed, it's vague and confusing, it sounds a lot like corporate speak for ads. "Valuable messages from our partners" sort of thing. From the first few paragraphs it seems like they are describing some sort of toast notification for when they have some sort of announcement to make, but that wording could very well be a euphemism for targeted ads.
- indecisive_user 6y agoThis is the spanish wording from the original article >Como tal, no serán anuncios publicitarios con fines comerciales, sino más bien de servicios, siempre ligado a la comunidad o a la app Which has the same meaning as the english translation in the article. As such, they will not be advertisements for commercial purposes, but rather for services, always linked to the community or the app.
- throwaway3673 6y agoavisos y anuncios can also mean notices and announcements. I don’t know why AI went the Ads route.
- Hoasi 6y ago> Hey there! WhatsApp is using you. > (...) and now a word from our sponsor
- inetknght 6y ago> The ads would not be sent in the form of chat, but they would appear as a kind of banner in the specific app and redirect you to external websites, in the same way they could require certain action from the user. No surprise coming from a subsidiary of Facebook.
- addicted 6y agoLet’s not forget that WhatsApp was an app that was profitable without ever showing ads or destroying its users’ privacy before being bought by Facebook. They built up a massive user base while still charging several dollars for their app.
- mtmail 6y agoThey charged only 1 US Dollar, after the first year. That was removed after the Facebook acquisition. https://www.cnet.com/news/whatsapp-kills-1-subscription-fee/ https://www.cnet.com/news/whatsapp-kills-1-subscription-fee/
- kiliancs 6y agoAnd this was never really enforced. I don't know anyone who paid for it.
- hashbig 6y agoI remember when I paid the $0.99 after the first year a friend told me "if you uninstall the app and reinstall it, you get another year for free".
- anshumankmr 6y agoMy father was one of its earliest adopters, even before I was. He paid for it. I joined maybe sometime in 2012 or 2013. WhatsApp kept renewing my subscription for free. Also, fun fact, my first version of WhatsApp was on a Nokia phone... With the Symbian OS. We have really come a long way since then.
- justapassenger 6y agoAny source on them being profitable vs having revenue? IIRC they were very inconsistent in charging users, depending on the country, platform, time you signed up, etc.
- jcampbell1 6y ago
- ffpip 6y agoComments from an HN user with username brianacton, from 2 years ago - "I remember this pretty clearly. I always liked the $0.99 per year model because it was pure and simple. However, it was a three way decision with Mark for it, Jan somewhat on the fence, and me against. The primary argument being that payment was artificially hindering growth. Frankly, our growth was just fine at the time. History tells us how the decision landed." This may or may not be the actual Brian Acton (founder of whatsapp)
- learnstats2 6y agoBad machine translation from Spanish to English - is there a native English source?
- kangaroozach 6y agoDidn’t Jan Khoum negotiate against ads upon acquisition by Facebook?
- kangaroozach 6y agoDidn’t Jan Khoum negotiate against ads upon being acquired by Facebook?
- malloreon 6y agoif I remember correctly Jan and Brian collectively left over $1B on the table rather than stay at facebook for another 1-2 years.
- hashbig 6y agoWhen you sell, you lose the upper hand. You can't make any promises or any guarantees. All the negotiations in the world won't make a difference.
- phreack 6y agoThis is blogspam from this source (which has an awful adblock wall) https://wabetainfo.com/whatsapp-is-going-to-update-their-terms-of-service-in-2021/ https://wabetainfo.com/whatsapp-is-going-to-update-their-ter...
- krick 6y ago> In case you are not in favor of the modifications, you can delete your WhatsApp account through the configuration. Right. I wish I could delete my WhatsApp account even before any modifications, but I still am occasionally added to message-groups for various club activities I very much care about. Fuck you.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- vsskanth 6y agoWish they stayed with 1 dollar a year funding model. I would pay 5 dollars a month for a family plan with high priority HD video chat.
- Throwaway1771 6y agoCheck out Jitsi Meet, in the meantime. £Free.99!
- bassman9000 6y agoIt's not ads, that's a poor translation of an article in Spanish... from a source in English, quoting a tweet. https://wabetainfo.com/whatsapp-is-going-to-update-their-terms-of-service-in-2021/ https://wabetainfo.com/whatsapp-is-going-to-update-their-ter... They're copying the Telegram announcements.
- gbh444g 6y agoTime to disable auto-updates for whatsapp.
- hyperdunc 6y agoWhatsApp stops working after a while unless you keep it updated.