- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
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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Get Signal.
*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.
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.
I hate how my country (Brazil) depends so much on Whatsapp. If I could, I would uninstall that app immediately.
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.
Same thing here in Italy
“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
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.
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.
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.
I don’t use either but my issue with Signal is none of my friends want another application to install and they are happy with WhatApp.
Conversely, I’m happy not having a group chat app and will either text you or iMessage you. Don’t you dare ring me as I ain’t answering.
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.
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LET THE ENSHITTIFICATION BEGIN!
Oh honey that ship sailed long ago
Begin? 🤔🤔🤔
What year is this?
2025!
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.
Soon: WhatsApp revanced
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.
I wished Whatsapp wasn’t a thing so much. There are so many so much better apps. Signal is so much better and it would work fine for the vast majority of people.
Unfortunately “better” varies from person to person. Signal is behind on features, e.g. WhatsApp has integration for businesses (customer support).
I hope my monthly donation will help but we must realize for some some features are important, I guess that for most it’s how many ppl they know is there/unwilling to lead a migration
Nobody in their right mind wants to use Whatsapp for getting support. That is insane. I want to message people and do group chats. That is it. Anything else is bloat.
I’m forced to use WhatsApp chat so I keep it installed begrudgingly. But who the fuck is using WhatsApp stories?
Who is forcing you?
Only my family, friends and work. But I’m working on cutting them out of my life.
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.
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.
Isn’t Beeper another security risk? They also store your data on their cloud, and it’s not encrypted during the bridge process.
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.
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.
