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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I hate how my country (Brazil) depends so much on Whatsapp. If I could, I would uninstall that app immediately.
Same thing here in Italy
Same here in UK. So many people think of it like email. A universal communication system. They can’t see the problem with it being a single, closed, for profit, provider. Now Meta feels people are locked in, they will be finding out. But they still won’t see the problem until it ratcheted to really bad. Like frogs in boiling water.
Same in Germany.
I do believe it’s better than using iMessage for example but it’s undoubtedly rubbish.
*gasp*
Who could have ever seen this move coming? From Facebook, of all companies!
To be fair, I am shocked… Not to see a Pikachu face in the comments.
Thank you for your assistance.
“We will never show you ads in WhatsApp. We promise”. --Facebook when they bought WhatsApp and promised the previous owner not to force ads in the app…
I wonder if anyone believed them at the time
If they did not, they at least ignored that instinct and kept using WhatsApp…
How do we get people to stop ignoring their better instincts in things like this?
About the same time we hold people accountable for the words they use when convincing people to make a choice against their interests… So never
The only way to completely fix it is to make the services be compatible, so that people can switch without the downside of leaving people behind.
This is complicated and has downsides though.
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Should’ve included a clause that gives WhatsApp back to the sellers without returning the payment if they walk back from it. Put your money where your mouth is.
Nothing better than having a private conversation with my friends and having some dude lean in to remind us that Brawndo, the thirst mutilator, has electrolytes.
@MazonnaCara89 The country I live in (Brazil) overly uses and depends on WhatsApp. From government departments to businesses and transactional relations, all the way to social and family affairs, people is addicted to it, forcing other people (e.g. me) to either have a WhatsApp account or ending up far beyond mere social ostracism (beyond mere loneliness): effectively, the inability to buy, sell, rent or even resolve citizen matters with certain government/state departments (such as receiving medical appointment schedules from Brazilian’s public health system (Sistema Unico de Saude/SUS (Unified Health System) via their “postinhos”/“Unidades Basicas de Saude” (neighborhood public health centers)). They don’t even use the grand old phone calling and SMS anymore: even “calls”, when performed, are made by people/departments/businesses via Whatsapp VoIP functionality.
That said, it’s worth mentioning that WhatsApp has been running ads for a long time: the “Channels” section lists seemingly random “channels”, many of which are businesses with “verified” “blue badges”. So it’s effectively advertisement disguised as veiled “recommendations” from Meta. It seems like it’ll just become worse (to the surprise of no one who understands what Meta is).
I really want to leave WhatsApp, but I’m socially compelled to stay (it’s the only mainstream platform where I still have an account, against my will)… the raw, grotesque distillation from social compliance, worse than depicted in Derren Brown’s documentaries…
jesus that some dystopian shit
Facebook has had a strategy for a long time of monopolising the internet of countries that previously had very little internet. They essentially subsidise internet infrastructure and make that subsidy dependent on facebook being a central part of the network.
So I’m not surprised to hear this. They obviously have found ways to inveigle themselves into key infrastructure in lots of places, even if they couldn’t build it in from the ground up.
@MazonnaCara89 @Excrubulent I’m unable to reply your reply directly (for some reason, the Friendica instance I use can’t see the Lemmy instance you’re in; I’m suspecting it’s because Solarpunk instance uses Anubis CAPTCHA and Friendica could be operating in a different manner from how Lemmy operates hence triggering Anubis for a server-to-server communication, but I’m not sure).
I’m replying through this reply to my reply.
Facebook has had a strategy for a long time of monopolising the internet of countries that previously had very little internet. They essentially subsidise internet infrastructure and make that subsidy dependent on facebook being a central part of the network.
Exactly. And many carrier operators over here (Tim, Claro, Vivo) offer “rate-less access” (i.e. won’t count as consumed bytes) to Facebook, WhatsApp, among other mainstream platforms (sometimes TikTok).
Also, there are “Captive portals” (web-based Wi-Fi authentication for passwordless Wi-Fi networks) from many “free Wi-Fi hotspots” out there which uses “Facebook login” as a means of getting accessing to their “free Wi-Fi”. Facebook (and, by extension, Meta and its platforms) is deeply ingrained into Brazilian’s daily lives and I’m frequently told to “have a Facebook profile” for me, it’s deeply annoying.They obviously have found ways to inveigle themselves into key infrastructure in lots of places, even if they couldn’t build it in from the ground up.
Exactly!
jesus that some dystopian shit
Yeah… it’s a deeply boring dystopian world. The world has been indistinguishable from Cyberpunk.
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.
It’s still there, buried in the settings. TBF I wouldn’t expect them to remove it, because some people probably do use it.
I recommend https://simplex.chat/
I recommend you have a look at this guy’s Twitter profile and reconsider.
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What does this mean? What’s on his twitter profile?
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.
What’s on his twitter profile?
Well for one, he’s still on Twitter, which is run by a Nazi, so…
LET THE ENSHITTIFICATION BEGIN!
Begin? 🤔🤔🤔
What year is this?
2025!
Oh honey that ship sailed long ago
Doctorow is always right.
If thats not a reason to switch to Signal what is.
But people just suck it up anyway, they did when reddit gone to shit, they did when Amazon startes showing ads even tho when you were paying, they did when Netflix disallowed sharing and you had to pay extra.
People just suck up whatever is thrown at them and are fucking stupid.
We cant have nice things, because companies will greed and if users dont react and cancel the shit out of them they and others will continue to press more moneyjuice out of people.
Sheep don’t know they are being slaughtered. We’re the digital 1% and we can’t make the sheep wake up.
How is signal insulated from the same fate? Isn’t it another free app that will eventually hit the enshitification wall?
Signal is run by a non-profit. Moxie has integrity. And the software is open source.
There are more safeguards than in case of proprietary apps of for-profit companies.
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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.
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!!
WhatsApp 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.
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.
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.
@Auth
So that’s why we donate to @signalapp
@MazonnaCara89It’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.-
I dont think its for profit being the issue. Companies making a profit is fine. Its publicly traded companies giving bad incentives.
The enshittification process in a nutshell.
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Explains why I’ve started seeing ads for WhatsApp, which was really bizarre
Get Signal.
Repeat after me… “Enshitification”!
Is it really enshitification if it was shit to begin with?
Years ago before Meta bought it, it was good. So I think it kind of counts.
The problem is there are very few alternatives that will work for grandma and her friends, especially open source alternatives. This is why WhatsApp and LINE are stupidly popular.
I had to use LINE for work a few years ago to communicate with the Philippines. Awful app.
Awful depends on your point of view. Is it easy to message and call your friends and make group chats for free? The answer is yes. The fact that the interface sucks and is ad-ridden is irrelevant to older aunties and uncles.
