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WhatsApp seems set on introducing ads, but they won't appear in your inbox (www.androidpolice.com)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[-] [email protected] 72 points 8 months ago

This seems to follow a progression

  • No ads
  • Non-intrusive ads
  • Intrusive ads, but you can pay to make them go away
  • Intrusive ads, but you can pay to make them less intrusive
  • Intrusive ads and you have to pay just to see the content
  • Content becomes ads
  • Ads pretend to be content (see Dr. Pepper's "Fansville")
  • Award categories for ads are featured in major award ceremonies
  • Award ceremonies just for ads go mainstream

Actually not sure what's real vs hypothetical at this point.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

This comment is brought to you by Nord VPN

[-] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

This is how you end up with that scene in Demolition Man where they’re singing commercials.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

(see Dr. Pepper's "Fansville")

Nice try, Dr. Pepper. If that is even your real name!

[-] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Oh gosh. Did my critique of ads just become an ad?

[-] [email protected] 30 points 8 months ago

Use Signal instead and donate what you can per month! I'd much rather support them than Meta

[-] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

The only thing stopping me would be that literally no one on my contact list wants to do that... including work. I'm sure that's the same for most people.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

There's one slight issue with Signal and it's that none of my contacts is using it and I'm not going to be the guy telling them to install it just so that they can talk to me.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Not gonna lie I did this with all of my friends and family and most of them switched 🤣 But I completely get not wanting to go there!

[-] [email protected] -3 points 8 months ago

You should. If they'll literally stop talking to you over an app choice how good of friends are they?

[-] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Aren't you doing the same thing to them in this case?

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Legitimate question: would Signal or Matrix be the most desirable place to end up in a hypothetical post-WhatsApp Hegemony world? Or XMPP for that matter?

I've honestly never got my head around the difference in terms of the pros and cons of each.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I actually haven't heard of Matrix, it sounds like your knowledge on this topic surpasses my own!! I'm gonna research the things you mentioned though because I'm interested!

[-] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago

Time to find your matrix homeserver!

[-] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

I do love the idea of matrix, but it's definitely not a direct replacement for whatsapp, sadly.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

How do you even search for it. What's it called ? Matrix brings up the film franchise

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

This is just part of the problem. Matrix is the network, but clients you use are dozens with different names like Element, FluffyChat, Neochat, Fractal, heck even Thunderbird supposedly supports Matrix. And then a huge problem with this is not every client supports every Matrix function. Like end to end encryption? Half of the clients doesn't even support this main selling point.

Does anyone else get XMPP/jabber vibes from this? Wasn't this part of why jabber never really got adopted en masse?

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

So is it user friendly to non devs ? I haven't been able to find information regarding it.

Any suggestions for using matrix ? Is it useful or nah ?

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

It's not hard to use, but it's not as "idiotproof" like whatsapp or messenger. Once you have it installed and created account somewhere like matrix.org, it's quite simple.

Main benefit is you're not feeding advertisment privacy intruding behemots with your data by using matrix.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Ok that's helpful. Anything you suggest? I pick a client and get my partner to do the same and that's it ? Then I start to get other people, my family and such to use it as well. Slowly and surely. Like with WhatsApp.

Then do they sell to highest bidder and I start over again or ?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Well, we can only hope that decentralisation is good enough argument for not selling.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

So run into first issue. Picked element X. However I don't have an account. So I'm stumped. Do I need to create a matrix account first ? How do I do that ? Do I need to pick another platform or protocol first and then backtrack?

Probably a reason matrix is a small community. It's not user friendly. No chance in hell any of my friends or parents would even bother after the first roadblock

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Would decides though

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Why not? What is missing?.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

It's more like Slack than Whatsapp IMO. It's not so streamlined and using it on multiple devices is definitely mainly for tinkers. Or at least it was couple years ago. That cross signing through devices was everything but intuitive.

And THE feature everyone I know misses the most is giphy/tenor support, which is kind of dumb, but also really understandable. This and similar nice to have features are still lacking.

Is Matrix better for the users privacy? Definitely yes! But is it better user experience? Well, kind of almost, but not yet.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Cross signing is easy now, ether scan a QR code, or compare emojis. Multi device on Matrix is even better than WhatsApp, signal etc. because you are not forced having at least one android or iOS phone running the main instance but all instances are the same level, same as in telegram. Having threats is superior to what whatsapp offers (no threats) Well, I’m not a gif sender, so I never recognized that gif is not supported

[-] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Good to hear cross signing is now easier. I remember it was real PITA.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Why not? I never tried it so I don't know the details

[-] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

Because exactly 2 peopleI know have matrix users.

I still use it, and refuse to use Whatsapp, but it takes some effort to get people over to the beautiful FOSS-side

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

You can set up some bridges until you have convinced others to use matrix as well (Btw. Matrix is NATO approved 😝)

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Yeah, you can do a lot of things with Matrix, unless you want to post a gif, lol. The main problem is it's still far from being as user friendly as those like Messenger, Whatsapp or Telegram. Typical user doesn't really care about its privacy upper hand or it being federated, typical user see it's too complicated and nobody uses it, so he'll pass on it too. Which is sad.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

The app is not less user friendly than whatsapp. It is running the server that is difficult, but average joe can just create an account at matrix.org

[-] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Yes, but explain that to average person, especially older one. It's hard, trust me, I'm dealing with this kind of people every day and unless it's extremely streamlined (as whatsapp is, cause you don't even need account name, it's your number, yay, so easy) "it's hard and I don't have time/patience for that"... sad reality unfortunately.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Fair enough.. it’s even difficult to move people to signal when it’s exactly same setup process as for WhatsApp.. I guess it’s irrational fear of change kicking in and they don’t even know themselves why exactly they don’t want to add new messengers.

[-] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago

I hope that they put ads, lots and lots of ads, so I can finally switch to something else.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

Waiting for WhatsApp enshittification do that I can move to more open platform

[-] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

WhatsApp doesn't have an inbox. What are they talking about!?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

It has a feed now full of podcasters and tiktokers, the web version offers me to buy ads for the feed right in the front of the messages, every time I open it, disgusting

[-] HootinNHollerin 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Chats

[-] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I hope they do it. And I hope It’s bad enough to push users away.

Then I my exit out of the Meta ecosystem will be complete!

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I'm so happy I'm not using WhatsApp. I use Matrix and Telegram and that's it.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Does WhatsApp have a premium option like Telegram?

Not actually opposed to paying for my messenger, altho Meta won't get any $ from me

[-] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Don't worry, they're still making money off you.

this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
92 points (96.0% liked)

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