I forgot WhatsApp existed.
Guess its shittier now.
Mhm. Yup.
WhatsApp is officially getting ads
Submitted 9 months ago by MazonnaCara89@lemmy.ml to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theverge.com/news/687519/whatsapp-launch-advertising-status-updates
Comments
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
KuroiKaze@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Tell me you’re not well traveled without saying you’re not well traveled
100_kg_90_de_belin@feddit.it 9 months ago
It’s the go-to messagging app in my country for historical reasons.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I don’t even remember what it’s for. Somehow life goes on.
quack@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
I’m guessing you’re in the US. In many parts of the world including where I live, it’s the messenger app. If you don’t have WhatsApp you’re pretty much not communicating with people.
j0ester@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It’s not a popular messaging app in the US. It is in many other countries though. I use it to talk to my wife’s family.
zebidiah@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
I literally just got my senior citizen dad off Skype and over to WhatsApp like 2 years ago… Ain’t no way I can get him over to signal
Opinionhaver@feddit.uk 9 months ago
Seems like I’m not in the target audience for these ads. I have absolutely zero clue what any of the things mentioned above are. I use WhatsApp to send messages.
Jaybird@lemmy.world 9 months ago
“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…
Taalen@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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.
Jaybird@lemmy.world 9 months ago
InnerScientist@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I wonder if anyone believed them at the time
Jaybird@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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?
noxypaws@pawb.social 9 months ago
Facebook shit gonna do facebook shit
cRazi_man@europe.pub 9 months ago
I’m forced to use WhatsApp chat so I keep it installed begrudgingly. But who the fuck is using WhatsApp stories?
Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world [bot] 9 months ago
Who is forcing you?
cRazi_man@europe.pub 9 months ago
Only my family, friends and work. But I’m working on cutting them out of my life.
PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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.
sykaster@feddit.nl 9 months ago
Isn’t Beeper another security risk? They also store your data on their cloud, and it’s not encrypted during the bridge process.
kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months ago
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.
lemmyingly@lemm.ee 9 months ago
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
AugustWest@lemm.ee 9 months ago
But then aren’t you trusting your credentials to yet another application? That seems like a bad idea…
cRazi_man@europe.pub 9 months ago
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.
ohwhatfollyisman@lemmy.world 9 months ago
whatsapp-free since 2023!
TomMasz@piefed.social 9 months ago
Meta has been running ads claiming no one can read your WhatsApp messages, including them. For some reason, I'm not 100% sure about this. It's hard to imagine they can resist grabbing all that data for their AI somehow.
Hadriscus@jlai.lu 9 months ago
Of course they fucking grab it. They have 45 backdoors with golden handles otherwise they’re show the fucking source
mrodri89@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
Damn first Telegram put a paywall to blocking non contacts and now this.
Shit, maybe we just gotta go iPhone to get easy encryption on messages. Rcs is kinda booty.
Fluxxr@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
I get downvoted to hell for years and years every time I defend iMessage. It’s such a nice experience and I get to communicate in a very multimedia way, using custom stickers and having it send animated handwriting when I write with my pencil on iPad. I get the platform limitation sucks, but it’s a better experience than WhatsApp or telegram or messenger ever was imo.
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 9 months ago
through its Stories-like status feature.
Eh, I’ve only seen it because of a misclick
SilverShark@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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.
Scolding7300@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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
SilverShark@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Yes, this is right. Saying arbitrarily “better” leaves a lot out.
I must admit that using the business integration for customer support has lead me to really good experiences. Especially not having to call, wait 20 minutes under a ring tone, and talking over a line with very low sound quality.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 9 months ago
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.
Kekzkrieger@feddit.org 9 months ago
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.
Fluxxr@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
How is signal insulated from the same fate? Isn’t it another free app that will eventually hit the enshitification wall?
ouch@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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.
Kekzkrieger@feddit.org 9 months ago
I mean yes thats possible. we dont have be bound to a company or app forever.
Generally Signal is by a non profit, meaning they dont have to make more money (as meta has to because they have obligation to share holders) meaning enshittification, if any, is gonna be slower and less probable
PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Sheep don’t know they are being slaughtered. We’re the digital 1% and we can’t make the sheep wake up.
dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months ago
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.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 9 months ago
I just deleted WhatsApp one day and made the switch. Messaged all important contacts, that I will be available via Signal. Most of the few I care about went ahead and installed Signal. One is still dragging their feet and we communicate via SMS now xD
zewm@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I only use WhatsApp for work and none of my coworkers are switching off it. They have too much invested in it. Family specifically.
hraegsvelmir@ani.social 9 months ago
I had a similar situation at my previous two jobs, but I just told people I wasn’t installing WhatsApp, if they asked, and nothing ever came of it. If it’s that important, they could text me or use my work email.
Ulrich@feddit.org 9 months ago
Only shocking part of this is that it took them this long.
skisnow@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
Yeah, it was never not going to happen. Shareholders demand unending year-on-year growth at all costs, forever, until everything is shit.
malfisya@piefed.social 9 months ago
This is one of the train that impossible for me to get off. It is very ubiquitous in my country to use whatsapp instead of text. I must suck it up I guess. 😅
rocky1138@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Be the change
Scolding7300@lemmy.world 9 months ago
www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9Ux8DFgMSM
Might give you some ideas on how to do that
Getting6409@piefed.social 9 months ago
It may not fit your exact needs, but my solution to WhatsApp and fb messenger is to bridge them with a beeper account. Of course you lose the calling ability, but if you're not using it for calls it is a good enough solution. The other caveat (at least with fb messenger) is you still need to check on your actual account if you get any legit messages from someone not on your list.
malfisya@piefed.social 9 months ago
This might be good middle ground. The last time I tried beeper, the apps is kinda .... suck tho. Well, at least it not full of ads!
Does it still require user to install their desktop app first?
lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world 9 months ago
[deleted]malfisya@piefed.social 9 months ago
The most important people in my life is my family, especially my parents. Teaching them to try new app to chat to me is easy enough but all of their friends and groups are still on whatsapp.
Making them juggle between two apps (separating how they interact to me and totheir friends) is not easy. Justifying it is even harder, they simply don't care (to understand) the implication.
Rather than make them confused and worried about not being able to contact me, I just have to accept the status quo. It is the conclusion I arrive at.
Must be nice tho to not use any Meta product. :)
Zak@lemmy.world 9 months ago
A fair number of my contacts from countries where this is true also have Signal. If you don’t, I suggest installing it and seeing how many people are there.
If it’s hard to remember who uses what, start conversations from the contacts app instead of one of the messaging apps; in most cases it will tell you.
malfisya@piefed.social 9 months ago
Already did that months ago when they change the term of services and people are aware of it at the time. Many install Signal, tried them, signal got overloaded, experience degraded, people are back to Whatsapp. Now only dead account are there. Telegram is more popular but that is just jumping from crocodile's mouth to shark's.
Government agencies, company customee services all relies on Whatsapp. They have emails but if you want to get response in timely manners, Whatsapp is the way to go (Or twitter, again another bad alternatives).
At least it is still E2E (supposedly), so it is not all bad. Look, I know I sound pessimistic because I am (at least in this specific topic). I hope everyone else can do better than me, cheers!
naeap@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
adding that it won’t use your messages, calls, or groups to inform its ads.
I thought they used some E2E implemented for them by the Signal team.
Have they already butchered it completely?Zak@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I don’t think any evidence has come to light that WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption of message contents is broken, but it’s also impossible to prove that it is correct because the client is not open source.
SieYaku@chachara.club 9 months ago
For my the best choose is XMPP… More choices, federated, simple and very secure with Omemo. You don’t have the security issues like you do in WhatsApp, Telegram or Matrix (who’s principal server is in economic problems matrix.org). And Signal… Well it’s a long journey and can take very bad turns cause is private and has big ties with the US and big corp, still is and option and you can use the fork Molly.
Broken@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
Out of curiosity, do you use your xmpp app for SMS as well? I’ve been doing so (since the majority of my family will not leave the SMS messaging system) but its a bit lacking when it comes to groups and MMS.
SieYaku@chachara.club 9 months ago
Was don’t know that was possible! So… No I don’t use it that way. But now I’m interested in explore it. Thanks!
ieatpwns@lemmy.world 9 months ago
That must be the reason they’ve been putting out more ads about chats being secure between both chatters. A misdirection so they can personalize your ads to your conversations
cheese_greater@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Signal doesnt have ads…
Mynameisallen@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
Glad I got out when I did
SieYaku@chachara.club 9 months ago
Me too… I just did it and feels better and better with every actualization that’s showing up…
mintiefresh@piefed.ca 9 months ago
Hopefully this helps people move off of WhatsApp to Signal or something else.
FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I just wish SMS would go away.
FinalRemix@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Why? It works fine and it’s built into the phones. No need to convince family members to install a fuckin’ chat app just to be able to message them.
Ulrich@feddit.org 9 months ago
Yeah like it moved them off of Xitter, Reddit, Facebook and Instagram.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 9 months ago
I mean we are here, aren’t we? The majority of people will do nothing of course, but some will make the switch or even just install another app just to give it a try. And soon Whatsapp’s enshittification will continue and some more people will switch and so on.
SieYaku@chachara.club 9 months ago
Hope so… Just a little bit and them another ones when they extent the implementation of IA… And wishing to not be the standard any more
RedWheelbarrow@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Ahh meta!!! Sighs.
razorcandy@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months ago
[deleted]mybuttnolie@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
but still nobody is going to switch. whenever i try to convince people to switch, they just defend whatsapp and I’m a whiner
herrvogel@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Or they do switch but for like 1 day and then go back to messaging you on WhatsApp. I tried switching to signal at least a couple times, even convinced a couple groups to move, but not a single chat lasted more than a couple weeks. Eventually they all went back to WhatsApp. Every single one. It’s extremely difficult to get people to care.
espentan@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Uninstalled.
Luckily I/people I interact with never used it much.
FelixCress@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Time to ditch WhatsApp
myrmidex@lemmy.nogods.be 9 months ago
the best time to quit was 10 years ago. The second-best time is now.
calavera@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
No, the second best was 10 years minus 1 day ago
merde@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
👆 mark that comment. I’m sure you’ll write that again in a year or so
antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
And again in a year or so only a handful of tech nerds with few social connections will actually ditch it.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 9 months ago
And the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that, and
themeatbridge@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Slowpoke meme, I chose you… like 10 years ago.
NotForYourStereo@lemmy.world 9 months ago
gasp
Who could have ever seen this move coming? From Facebook, of all companies!
ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Good news good Signal.
pinesolcario@lemy.lol 9 months ago
Considering the zero byte article using anything from Meta is a FAFO moment.