8 ms·
Why we don't sell ads – WhatsApp Blog
- hundunpao 12y ago>Have you considered the alternative? Yes and they are better. i'm using Hangouts, Telegram and Line... why should I use WhatsApp? These App all have more functionalities and are "free".
- igvadaimon 12y agoIt's not "alternative to whatsapp", it's "alternative app monetization strategy".
- quonn 12y agoI'm using it because everyone else is on WhatsApp.
- berdario 12y agoI used to use Google Talk, but I find Hangouts sometimes unreliable. Nowadays I only use Hangouts with my mother (because she doesn't want to switch to other services). I dislike to use something closed source like Whatsapp, but it's not like Hangouts, Telegram or Line are much better (almost no one I know is connecting to Google's servers with XMPP, and Telegram doesn't have an open source server implementation) I started to use Telegram recently, thanks to my Ubuntu phone, but I don't like the fact that it's storing the messages unencrypted server-side. Whatsapp is much better on this front, since everything is encrypted by default, and usage across multiple devices (i.e. desktop) is handled wonderfully by the webapp. OTOH, neither Whatsapp nor Telegram afaik give you any way to verify the identify of the other person, and E2E encryption without identity verification is of dubious utility... TextSecure is nice, but it has only barely more users than Telegram
- nodata 12y agoWhy Telegram and not Signal/TextSecure?
- dewey 12y agoThey don't have a Desktop client.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- explorigin 12y agoWell they're working on a solution here: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure-Browser https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure-Browser
- mrweasel 12y agoThat's not what he mean. The question is "Have you considered the alternative to charging for WhatsApp". The alternative would be advertising or selling access to user data. My general take is that if you need advertising to monetise your product, then maybe your product isn't as good as you think it is. Most newspapers are a good example of this, if you need a ton of ads on your website to make money, maybe your not doing a good enough job providing news that people are willing to pay for. As service become more and more depended on ads, the quality of the product starts to take a back seat and in the end you end up with click bait. Google might be an exception, they seem to have found a mix that people can live with, or perhaps they're just really good at hiding ads in plain sight.
- sososoko 12y agoi have used each of the ones u mentioned, even used Path Talk, and Kakao Talk, and Wechat, these are very popular in Asia. I always feel they are boated with unnecessary functions. All i want( as well as many people) is to send a message/picture & the ocassional video quickly and efficiently. If only hangouts was more like the good old google talk. Line is starting to look like a social network, same with Kakao. I don't want stickers i just want no frills messaging. Whatsapp prides itself as being like SMS, and that's exactly what i want, but without the expensive SMS rates(for us from Africa & Asia)
- lmz 12y ago(2012)
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- manigandham 12y agoMessaging/chat are inherently bad apps for advertising anyway. This post was also from 2012, before selling to Facebook for 19B.
- timdaub 12y agoJust wanted to post that. Mods please tag (2012).
- yoz-y 12y agoI'd say that messaging is amazing for advertising. Consider this scenario: - you come to a restaurant - you see a QR code on the menu, if you flash the code and share it with your friends the restaurant will give you a discount In this case the customer is motivated to use the coupon because they have a discount and their friends are more likely to come because they trust the poster. First time I've seen this method was in China but I would not be surprised if it were actually quite common (haven't seen in in Europe so far though)
- JonFish85 12y agoSee I feel like this is a slippery slope. Speaking 100% anecdotally, a text message / direct message like that is expected to be personal communication; if my friends start bombarding me with ads in my text messages, we're going to have a serious talk. Via email is fine, mostly because it's expected that I'll be spammed. But it'd feel much more intrusive if my friends started texting me stupid codes to save 5% on their burrito.
- dhekir 12y ago> because they trust the poster. Until they realize it's just spam. Or they already know it and simply ignore such messages (e.g. LinkedIn recommendations, automatic invitations from random websites parsing your contact list...). One rare instance where this seems to work (at least partially) is when both sender and receiver share some benefit from the advertisement, e.g. as when mobile phone operators offer discounts for inviting new users, both to the current user and to the newly invited one. So, if your coupon might get me some future discount should I go to that restaurant, then yes, maybe I'd consider it...
- gcb0 12y ago> creates app that leeches your contact list and spam people to o install the app in your name > post about hating advertising you can cut the irony/hypocrisy with a knife. what's next? a post about how he loves client interoperability? heh.
- seqizz 12y ago"Remember, when advertising is involved you the user are the product." == "When advertising is not involved, your information is the product."
- skrebbel 12y ago> spam people to o install the app in your name Any references for this? I've been using Whatsapp for years and never saw them do this. I've spammed people, in person mostly, to install it back when Whatsapp wasn't ubiquitous where I lived yet, but that's it. I assume that's not what you meant.
- gcb0 12y agoit shows (or used to, or maybe it's an entirely different app. i only check them out in a sandbox at time of launch) all your contacts as "offline" and when you messaged them it sent out a sms or something else they would get hold of from the contact list your just gladly provided them and it appeared as a message from you asking them to install it.
- otterley 12y agoUnfortunately every non-closed IM system to date has been inundated with spammers and become practically useless.
- lewisl9029 12y agoI do actually find their monetization strategy laudable. Selling your product to users is, in my view, a far more ethical monetization strategy than selling your users to advertisers, and tends to result in far less potential conflicts of interest. That said, I also believe communication in general is too important to be left to proprietary software, which is why I won't be using WhatsApp anytime soon.
- netcan 12y agoIf you want to have a messaging app, everyone needs to have it. If everyone needs to have it it needs to be free. Even if you could run this app by charging users just 50c, it would fail and get beat by an app that was free.
- IanCal 12y ago> If you want to have a messaging app, everyone needs to have it. The people I want to talk to most need to have it. > If everyone needs to have it it needs to be free. Or at a cost they're willing to pay. > Even if you could run this app by charging users just 50c, it would fail and get beat by an app that was free. Assuming of course that the other app could sustain itself. I don't understand your argument. SMS worked just fine for a long time and is still used, yet it costs money either monthly or per message. Telephone calls cost money. Sending letters costs money. I'd hardly count those as failures when it comes to messaging mediums.
- yoz-y 12y agoSMS had the advantage that everybody had SMS. This is not the case at all for new messaging services. People do not want to use another messaging service, there are already too many. WhatsApp was one of the first and came in time where connectivity got barely good enough to support the service, that gave them a huge advantage.
- IanCal 12y ago> SMS had the advantage that everybody had SMS Well not everyone (the first one was sent 7 years after the first mobile phone call). And if you want to consider it to be everyone, then it's an example of something where everyone has it yet it's not free. > People do not want to use another messaging service No, and therefore you need to offer something better to make up for the annoyance of changing. I understand your point, it's the clearest example of a network effect and given two identical products the cheaper should be more attractive. However, this doesn't mean it has to have everyone and has to be free. Those are beneficial, but not absolute requirements. Right now, I'd pay money for a decent messaging service with push & pull, with a simple API that supports sending images. It doesn't even have to have many users, I simply want this service at the moment and will pay money for it.
- higherpurpose 12y agoWhen is Android to iOS end-to-end encryption coming? Since they aren't relying on ads, then they shouldn't need to rely on data-mining private conversations either.
- sososoko 12y agohow is it end to end when data is stored on their servers, i would assume its stored without encryption right?
- mschuster91 12y agoYou can do end-to-end encryption just like with emails. Just the metadata (sender, recipient) needs to be plaintext.
- sososoko 12y agoAhh, i think i get it. but that brings us back to my question; how is the data store on the server, Encrypted or plaintext? if its encrypted would that mean decryption happens per each session. e.g. when using whatsapp web ( could it be why they need the phone to be online? )
- motoboi 12y agoThey seem to use a public key method. How I would do it was by distributing keys to devices at login and let friends use a users public key to encrypt messages to him. Now you pack that encrypted message in a metadata envelope, send to server to be later retrieved by the owner. The keys should never leave the device.
- santiagobasulto 12y agoI'm wondering why did facebook buy WhatsApp? Oh, maybe to get better data from us to sell... yeah, Ads.
- chrisguitarguy 12y agoI suspect it's because WhatsApp's backend can be turned into a platform that will run WhatsApp itself as well as Facebook Messenger. There's a lot more opportunity to do messaging between businesses and individuals (eg. customer service) as well -- see messenger for business. Not saying Facebook isn't out to sell ads, just that there's probably a lot of reasons that Facebook might want WhatsApp's technology and team. Especially as they try to move more conversations onto their platform and reach out into other markets.
- alandarev 12y agoNo company was acquired for its "backend".
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- otterley 12y agoNonsense. Google's acquisition of Applied Semantics (which developed AdSense) became a major revenue engine for the company. There are countless other examples as well.
- netcan 12y agoI imagine the biggest driver was what people postulated at the time. It's the messaging app that the most people are using. It's used for updating groups of friends, sharing photos and all the other stuff that Facebook needs to be The Place for. It also has a simple, organic-ish mole for deciding who sees what and when that intuitively makes sense to people. IE, you don't have to twiddle with circle settings to find the nexus of friend-work and professional-friend that should see your message. Instead it just has groups that start out as "who wants to watch the fight at the bar" and sometimes people keep posting to them. Whatsapp could have pivoted or been acquired for directly competing with Facebook.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Psion7 12y agoWhatsApp isn't about putting ads into the app but for better data collection. That is why Facebook bought them. Facebook sells ads and targeting data and one of the best ways to analyse a persons life to better target them for ads is from their personal, non-public communication. You will talk about many more things in private conversation with friends and family than you will publicly on your Facebook profile. A simple example is you are talking to a few friends on WhatsApp about booking a holiday somewhere, you talk about locations, dates, prices, etc. all in private, now Facebook can take all that data and using their massive Facebook tracking system start advertising offers for hotels in the places you are looking at going, shops you often mention that sell clothes for your holiday, travel insurance, etc, etc. You don't need to stick ads IN the app to monetise it. In fact keeping it clean and ad free is the best thing to do as it keeps your users happy and using your app more which in turn leads to more and more data collection. I think the $1 a year thing is a load of crap that is used to distract people away from the whole "if it is free you are the product" idea. If WhatsApp looks like it is not free because you have to pay $1 a year then psychologically you "trust" it more because it is something you pay for rather than something that is analysing every thing you ever say to build a better advertising profile. Also has anyone actually ever paid that $1? I don't know anyone who has, they always get some "promotion" that gives them another year free for being a loyal WhatsApp user.
- mike-cardwell 12y agoExcept, as far as I know, Facebook/WhatsApp shouldn't be able to read the messages people send each other over the WhatsApp network because of end-to-end encryption: https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp/
- justinpaulson 12y agoTrue, but this doesn't stop them from cataloguing who I'm talking to. That data can be very valuable with facebook's model.
- Psion7 12y agoThey say the network communication is encrypted between end points but they don't say analysing is not being done prior to encryption on your end. What I mean is it is possible for the communication over the network to be encrypted between Bob and Alice but everything Bob writes to Alice could easily be used by WhatsApp/Facebook prior to being sent. They could even go as far as to encrypt it and just transmit your side of the conversation to their servers for later analysis.
- DevX101 12y agoThat blog post became irrelevant the day Jan Koum signed the deal with Zuckerberg. Sure, WhatsApp isn't selling ads TODAY, but you better believe it's coming. You don't shell out $19B for a 'defensive play'.
- wmt 12y agoSo wait, you know that Whatsapp has never have ads, but because it some day theoretically could have ads, you're saying that the post is irrelevant? Damn. Facebook have been bying all kinds on successful tech companies that don't have any relevance to the Facebook social network ad service, like the Oculus Rift. Not every company keeps selling one single thing forever you know?
- shubhamjain 12y agoOne big problem WhatsApp suffers from is having a majority of userbase in developing countries. India, where credit card penetration is still very low and people still are not accustomed to the concept of "buying" software, WhatsApp, simply keeps extending the free subscription period because most of people would find it very hard to pay, even something as little as $0.99. On the contrary, people here are ready to see obtrusive ads and avoid paying anything, because "free" is better.
- thomaskcr 12y agoI really don't get the hatred for ads -- it's really weird to me. I haven't been bothered by an ad in probably the past 3 years, I can't remember the last autoplaying ad I saw. I like ads, they make the internet frictionless. I don't need to worry about what I've paid for -- everything just works in return for giving up a little bit of my screen. I discovered Atlassian through ads and I really like their products, I assume those were targeted -- so if anything I've benefited from tracking. Maybe I'm a sheep, but I like easy - and I like that the people providing me with articles, how-tos, etc get paid for doing that. I have yet to see a viable alternative to ads for a low friction internet -- people using adblock are, in my opinion, bringing us closer to the tiered internet than cable mergers ever will.
- vasco 12y agoWhat I don't understand is that effectively for me, and everyone I know, Whatsapp is indeed free. Everyone started using it despite the "1st year free, after that pay up" and every year since we get a message saying like "we extended your membership for another year, please consider paying though". I'm not sure if it's different in other countries but from where I stand there's loads of people using whatsapp and not paying a cent for it.
- omonra 12y agoThey didn't sell ads for a very simple reason - they wanted to get as big as possible, as soon as possible for the sole purpose of selling themselves to FB/Google. That was the plan from day 1 (imho).
- iamben 12y agoI didn't realise this was 2012 until I started reading the comments. I wonder how much this post has changed post acquisition. I suspect Facebook grabbed my entire contact list from WhatsApp - the numbers in my phone were the only way to connect me to some of the people they suggest. As much as I hate it, it was a pretty crafty way to extend my social graph.
- gcatalfamo 12y agoHow can this make frontpage? Is this news or relevant anyhow?
- fredoliveira 12y agoParticularly when you consider the fact that this article is from 2012.
- justinpaulson 12y agoThis is quite a hypocritical post from a company that sold out to Facebook. I guess money > values.
- wmt 12y ago"If partnering with Facebook meant that we had to change our values, we wouldn’t have done it." https://blog.whatsapp.com/529/Setting-the-record-straight https://blog.whatsapp.com/529/Setting-the-record-straight
- justinpaulson 12y agoBeing a subsidiary of a company that does exactly what they are advocating against is an endorsement of their activity.
- perseusprime 12y agoThe article is 2012, not 2015. Let's see what they do when they hit 1B users.