WhatsApp explores ads in chat app as Meta seeks revenue boost

https://www.ft.com/content/41f334a5-856c-4512-b550-eb6062036224

by jmsflknr • 3 years ago

12 11 3 years ago

ft.com

archo• 3 years ago

https://archive.is/9A6fx

wodenokoto• 3 years ago

I think we’ve all been wondering when they’d start making money off of WhatsApp.

If I remember correctly it used to be a subscription app that would more or less extend your subscription indefinitely.

WhatsApp is close to critical infrastructure in many countries.

I think a better business model would be to somehow figure out a revenue share model with telcos. People accept paying for their phone number and for many people the main purpose of a phone number is to register for WhatsApp.

There has got to be some synergy there.

qp11• 3 years ago

Pretty much. And same thing will happen with Video creation/streaming. Creating video and broadcasting it to the planet is unsustainable if everyone is doing it.

wkat4242• 3 years ago

But not everyone does.

A lot of the content out there is purely fluff just created to catch some monetization. Basically the video version of clickbait.

But this crap is not really being watched. It just takes up space on a hard drive somewhere.

rvz• 3 years ago

Well either way, it seems Meta is about to at least find another billion from WhatsApp once they begin to monetize it with Ads or an ad sharing model with channels or if those channels start with a membership / subscription for joining a channel and Meta takes a cut from it.

Won't be surprised to see this actually work well for Meta.

lencastre• 3 years ago

Finally, I can’t wait to have every 7th message in my 99+ member primary school group to be an ad for something related to the metadata of each member and still somehow be very scarily related to the discussion that Timmy is sick today and please someone tell Mrs Krabackle. Seriously, why can’t WhatsApp just charge its yearly running costs divided by its number of active users? Asking for a friend…

ahoka• 3 years ago

Obviously that would have no growth potential.

Grimblewald• 3 years ago

I get so sick of this exnential growth requirement. The only things in nature that grow exponentially kill their host with time. Many stable things follow a sigmoid curve which can look and feel exponential for a while but true exponential is death incarnate.

juliangmp• 3 years ago

Ohh I can't wait for friends and family asking me his to get rid of the ads. The perfect opportunity to go "install signal instead"

mayankkaizen• 3 years ago

Whatsapp has already started stinking. These days I get many spam-ish messages from verified enterprises. As of now I am getting notification related messages from entities I am using services of but some of them have started sending spams. Although it is tolerable as of now but I can see where this is going. Too bad Whatsapp is defacto messaging app in India. So much so that even gov organizations are using it to interact with citizens.

happytiger• 3 years ago

“Enshitification accelerating sir,” he quipped from the monitoring desk.

“Excellent, right on schedule.”

The captain leaned back in his chair, a slight smirk on his face.

Breaking his regular formality, he cracked a smile back his monitoring lieutenant.

“You think they’d learn.”

WhatsApp explores ads in chat app as Meta seeks revenue boost

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