Technology

LET THE ENSHITTIFICATION BEGIN!

*gasp*

Who could have ever seen this move coming? From Facebook, of all companies!

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.

@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...

"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...

• provide free app at a loss

• grow massive user base and market share

• 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.

Good news good Signal.

Repeat after me.... "Enshitification"!

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.

the channels you follow

I knew they would use that info for targeted advertising

It's Facebook 101, let the users themselves tell you what they like

I'm forced to use WhatsApp chat so I keep it installed begrudgingly. But who the fuck is using WhatsApp stories?

This is such great news! More ammo to use when trying to convince friends and family to move away from WhatsApp

Soon: WhatsApp revanced

Doctorow is always right.

i use none of these features.

i'm glad they are not as invasive as i thought, but they will definetly be making them worse over time.

WhatsApp getting ads is great news! WhatsApp, and any other meta/facebook/for-profit-social-network will never be a good product. Therefore, the second best alternative is for it to be as bad as possible, so people finally change to worthy alternatives.

What is the alternative here? Don't know, perhaps Signal, though the devs are not welcoming at all. The UI is absolute shit. Looks like UI for old people, huge margins and empty space. My screen fits like 3 chats. A compact theme would take a few hours to create and vastly improve the product, but ya..

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.

Facebook shit gonna do facebook shit

Hopefully this helps people move off of WhatsApp to Signal or something else.

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.

People are going to use whatever the majority use.

I need to ude WhatsApp when i travel to countries egere it's widely adopted. Just like I need tocuse Facebook if I want to partake in group chats with friends.

They're just too big. How is anything else supposed to take off? Just gradually maybe.

So maybe Signal will get there in a few years? What's itd adoption rate since it was created?

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

I hope Signal does this too!

- no one ever.

You mean WhatsCrap?

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.

Never used it for personal ends. But I'm curious to see if all the companies using as a work tool will divert from it.

Signal.

And IF I learn how to run Jammi, it will be my default communication application.

Explains why I've started seeing ads for WhatsApp, which was really bizarre

I forgot WhatsApp existed.

Guess its shittier now.

Mhm. Yup.