WhatsApp is officially getting ads
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.
https://www.theverge.com/news/687519/whatsapp-launch-advertising-status-updatesOpen linkView original on lemmy.ml843
Comments222
To be fair, I am shocked... Not to see a Pikachu face in the comments.
Thank you for your assistance.
As somebody that doesn’t use what’s app, I’m shocked it didn’t have ads already.
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.
No idea, all I see as options now for Paypal and credit card.
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?
https://xcancel.com/epoberezkin
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.
I wonder if anyone believed them at the time
The only way to completely fix it is to make the services be compatible, so that people can switch without the downside of leaving people behind.
This is complicated and has downsides though.
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
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.
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.
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
I only use WhatsApp for work and none of my coworkers are switching off it. They have too much invested in it. Family specifically.
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.
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.
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
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.
I'd forgotten about this!!
Wasn’t it like a quid to sign up?
It's not very easy to solve the issue of infinite growth in a world with finite resources. The fundamental issue is that it's just not physically possible, but they keep trying. Either we continue this cycle and eventually destroy the planet irreversibly, or we acknowledge that maybe money isn't everything, and that maybe [the vast majority of] people aren't inherently egoitistical monsters, and we move on to different systems.
WhatsApp was charging $1-$3 per year before Facebook's acquisition. They had 600M+ users and a team of twelve people. It was beautiful while it lasted.
Hopefully we can carry out the original mission with Signal.
@Auth
So that's why we donate to @signalapp
@MazonnaCara89
The enshittification process in a nutshell.
Eastern Europe loves the app Viber that Rakuten bought, which has had ads for years.
People LOVE a walled garden of their friends are there, too.
It's not just the funding, it's the business overall. Public companies need to show growing revenues year to year, and worse: growing revenues with a minimum yield. A product can grow by attracting more users up to a certain point. Then the only way to grow is by making more money out of the same users base. If the revenue is based on ads:
Freemium is not always working well and Meta never used it. They have no new great idea to extend the product without eating their other products users bases. So the only one left is more ads.
Funding is not the issue, for-profit companies are. Non-profit is the way to go. Federation is even better as individuals/families/small organizations can run their own servers.-
I dont think its for profit being the issue. Companies making a profit is fine. Its publicly traded companies giving bad incentives.
I'm forced to use WhatsApp chat so I keep it installed begrudgingly. But who the fuck is using WhatsApp stories?
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.
I stopped using it for 3 years, then I had to interact with a surgeon through it and reconnected with a fee people who still use it. I fucking hate using it
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.
I'm an android user and I semi-frequently meet iPhone users who show anything between surprise and downright disdain towards me because I don't have the right color of bubble.
It's never the other way around.
Where do you find these peeps?
Sewer oulets, I'm guessing.
Work, school (not anymore, but while I was in school), local events where I meet people, friends, etc.
The only iPhone users I ever met who cared were back when texting cost a lot, unless you had a special plan (there was one that made it free if the person you texted had the same plan). Then smart phones came and we all switched to Kik, then WhatsApp, then Messenger (some got both or an alternative). And now we have got free texting and calling across the whole EU, yet none of my friends uses it haha
Isn't Beeper another security risk? They also store your data on their cloud, and it's not encrypted during the bridge process.
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.
Doesn't help that Telegram media downloads are throttled by some Indian ISPs (looking at you, Jio)
But then aren't you trusting your credentials to yet another application? That seems like a bad idea....
Fair point. The simplest answer is thrt any other business cannot possibly be as evil as meta, so even worst case is a net win.
Who is forcing you?
Only my family, friends and work. But I'm working on cutting them out of my life.
LET THE ENSHITTIFICATION BEGIN!
Begin? 🤔🤔🤔
What year is this?
2025!
Oh honey that ship sailed long ago
Hopefully this helps people move off of WhatsApp to Signal or something else.
Yeah like it moved them off of Xitter, Reddit, Facebook and Instagram.
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.
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
I just wish SMS would go away.
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.
Because it sucks and it's tied to a provider and the rest of the world doesn't even use it.
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.
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.
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.
Lots of people in Brazil and many Spanish a speaking companies would disagree with you unfortunately. It's incredibly embedded in those countries, to the point where WhatsApp will often be the primary, and sometimes only, point of contact for a business. At least it's not that bad here.
Facebook shit gonna do facebook shit
but still nobody is going to switch. whenever i try to convince people to switch, they just defend whatsapp and I'm a whiner
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.
Keep answering on Signal.
got my mom and sister to switch our group chat to element, but after a month they decided it sucks and now they love whatsapp more than ever...
Wow, that's impressive
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.
Of course they fucking grab it. They have 45 backdoors with golden handles otherwise they're show the fucking source
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.
@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...
jesus that some dystopian shit
Facebook has had a strategy for a long time of monopolising the internet of countries that previously had very little internet. They essentially subsidise internet infrastructure and make that subsidy dependent on facebook being a central part of the network.
So I'm not surprised to hear this. They obviously have found ways to inveigle themselves into key infrastructure in lots of places, even if they couldn't build it in from the ground up.
@MazonnaCara89 @Excrubulent I'm unable to reply your reply directly (for some reason, the Friendica instance I use can't see the Lemmy instance you're in; I'm suspecting it's because Solarpunk instance uses Anubis CAPTCHA and Friendica could be operating in a different manner from how Lemmy operates hence triggering Anubis for a server-to-server communication, but I'm not sure).
I'm replying through this reply to my reply.
Exactly. And many carrier operators over here (Tim, Claro, Vivo) offer "rate-less access" (i.e. won't count as consumed bytes) to Facebook, WhatsApp, among other mainstream platforms (sometimes TikTok).
Also, there are "Captive portals" (web-based Wi-Fi authentication for passwordless Wi-Fi networks) from many "free Wi-Fi hotspots" out there which uses "Facebook login" as a means of getting accessing to their "free Wi-Fi". Facebook (and, by extension, Meta and its platforms) is deeply ingrained into Brazilian's daily lives and I'm frequently told to "have a Facebook profile" for me, it's deeply annoying.
Exactly!
@joel_feila:
Yeah... it's a deeply boring dystopian world. The world has been indistinguishable from Cyberpunk.
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. 😅
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.
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!
WTF!? What country is that?
I'd hazard a guess that it's Brazil.
Wrong continent ;)
India
Wrong country ;)
I said India, because I am an Indian, and our government also does use whatsapp. In some way, our countries have some kinship
edit - I just checked context of replies, and you said wrong continent for brazil, but not for me, is it because I atleast got the continent right? if so, let me guess again, is your country in indian subcontinent, or south east asia in general?
Southeast asia, Indonesia 🇮🇩. Cheers!
(If anyone bothered to check my bio, it would be easy to figure out. lol)
I did not experience this, and I've been using Signal daily for years. Prior to 2020 or so, I experienced more unreliability and hesitated to recommend it to the average person.
I'm familiar with the problem though; in most of the EU and probably other places WhatsApp usage is so high that it's a major inconvenience to avoid it entirely.
Signal has recently been giving me issues like taking forever to send and not properly notifying me about messages.
Android, iOS, or desktop?
I've noticed the occasional slow delivery, but I have had reason to believe the recipient has an unstable internet connection when that has happened.
Android and iOS. I'll have to see if it's better now though.
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.
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?
Not that I'm aware of, never even knew it was ever a requirement. I've only used the android client and the browser client. For whatever reason they don't really communicate the browser is out there for use. It's chat.beeper.com for anyone looking.
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. :)
This is such great news! More ammo to use when trying to convince friends and family to move away from WhatsApp
Only shocking part of this is that it took them this long.
Yeah, it was never not going to happen. Shareholders demand unending year-on-year growth at all costs, forever, until everything is shit.
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
Time to ditch WhatsApp
👆 mark that comment. I'm sure you'll write that again in a year or so
And the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that, and
And again in a year or so only a handful of tech nerds with few social connections will actually ditch it.
The best time to quit was 10 years ago. The second-best time is now.
No, the second best was 10 years minus 1 day ago
Slowpoke meme, I chose you... like 10 years ago.
I hate how my country (Brazil) depends so much on Whatsapp. If I could, I would uninstall that app immediately.
Same thing here in Italy
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.
I knew they would use that info for targeted advertising
It's Facebook 101, let the users themselves tell you what they like
I forgot WhatsApp existed.
Guess its shittier now.
Mhm. Yup.
It's the go-to messagging app in my country for historical reasons.
I've never used whatsapp and don't even remember what it's for. Somehow life goes on.
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.
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 most people.
I am in the US, but it's mostly that I just don't use messenger apps. I send ordinary text messages on my phone or make voice calls.
Tell me you're not well traveled without saying you're not well traveled
I just love ads! Especially when they get in the way of what I'm trying to do!!
Signal doesnt have ads...
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..
It seems to be device specific. On my device, WhatsApp fits 2 more chats. I hate meta/insta/fb/etc, but WhatsApp just looks considerably better than Signal. Signal, as I said earlier, just has huge margins and padding. It looks ugly.
Like you, I also want my messenger app to show conversations. Sadly, Signal shows more empty space than conversations. It really needs a compact UI. I invited several friends to Signal and they all left because it looks bad. I know it sounds like nitpicking, but UI/UX IS extremely important. Making the claim "meh, it looks fine" and ignoring people's perspective is not the way to run an app that is dependent on the number of users, like signal is. If I don't have anyone with whom to chat, the app is useless. It needs userbase.
Signal? Dude, I don't want nonstop getting updates about the war plans of the Trump administration ;-)
I know right? Why would I use signal? There's not even any games!
/s
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.
Uninstalled.
Luckily I/people I interact with never used it much.
delta.chat
The enshittify proof alternative!
Would signal also work?
I believe it is centralized but it is certainly an alternative to WhatsApp. My understanding is that it’s encrypted and privacy centric.
...Electron inside.
Yes, encrypted chats packetised over SMTP layer.
Smooth as silk for a year and a half.
Send pics, voicemails, files, videos, and video-chat(via Jitsi integration)
Arcane-chat app does location sharing too.
I've been off of WhatsApp for about 7 years. My only communication options with everyone else are phone calls or Signal, and for those that will not use at least signal, we'll, you can always call me.
I have arcane chat, but only 1 friend of mine from church uses it with me.
... So encrypted email?
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?
Gradually is the answer. You can dual use both Signal and Whatsapp. Same how you can use Lemmy and Facebook and are not limited to one sociale media app.
It's a slow grind for adoption. I've had Signal installed on my phone since like 2016. Went from one person I knew to now about ~30. It's mostly people from work at tech companies but progressively I've noticed other industries employees adopting it for unofficial chat that my contacts list has been growing over the years. Probably won't take off in a few years. Maybe another decade
Family chatgroup, signal Work chatgroup, signal Half of my friends, signal
Won't be very long until I remove whatsapp from my phone. That one friend that doesn't want to switch, call me I guess..
That's the main reason Signal uses phone numbers for verification.
That way you can see which of your contact can be reached on their platform.
I slowly diverted from WhatsApp to Signal in that way. I also have it in my WhatsApp bio: ''You can reach me on Signal. Come on over, it'll be fun''
Glad I got out when I did
Me too... I just did it and feels better and better with every actualization that's showing up...
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.
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.
Wow! don't know that was possible! So... No I don't use it that way. But now I'm interested in explore it. Thanks!
You mean WhatsCrap?
OH whatsSNAP
Doctorow is always right.
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.
I think you mean Jami (single m).
It's a nice concept but I'll try to get my xmmp server nice and secured.
I stand corrected.
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
Eh, I've only seen it because of a misclick
Explains why I've started seeing ads for WhatsApp, which was really bizarre
whatsapp-free since 2023!
Do you have WhatsApp?
No Telegram?
I dont have that one, none of the clients seem to work on my phone... Wechat?
Cant verify, SMS doesnt get through. LINE?
lol I dont have a japanese number. Kakaotalk?
No... ...discord?
Sure!
Shit he's 30 seconds from finding out Im a furry.
I've never had this problem. If they don't want to download Signal and can't cope with basic SMS then tough luck.
SMS has issues if youre traveling a lot or want to send large files. Nobody has Signal and Im not going to ask someone I just met to install a new app.
Okay email?
They can only say no. And if they do, their loss.
Asking for someones email when they ask for your whatsapp is weird.
It would be nice if I didnt need a dozen chat apps,each with their own faults, but being able to communicate with friends and family is more important than software evangelizing.
Yes it is. But that's not what I was suggesting.
I made the switch 6 months ago and can communicate just fine. Friends and family.
Its not evangelising, I've just chosen not to use WhatsApp, FB messenger etc. If other people want to surrender their personal data to Meta have at it.
I am glad your friends and family are more technically literate than mine or the people I meet.
Hm, first time I hear that one to be honest.
When I tried to move my family to Telegram, only 2 managed to successfully install and verify a client.
I'm highly technical and telegram refused to auth me on first install, no workaround
What on earth are you using instead of phones?
Half of them are boomers or have the tech literacy of boomers.
That I get. I am struggling to understand what device you need to have so installing Telegram is more complicated than installing WhatsApp
I wonder whether Meta will try to lock down cross platform access now.
Currently Beeper still works everywhere and EU'S DMA (Digital Markets Act) still has WhatsApp as gate keeper which is required to interpolate with other chat apps. However "WhatsApp stories" are entirely different from chat so that means they can block all of that and this is probably how Meta will approach future WhatsApp updates - more shit to lock people in WhatsApp that isnt directly chat related because thats the only way to show people ads.
Get Signal.
Ahh meta!!! Sighs.
Soon: WhatsApp revanced
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.
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.
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.
These ads on messaging services are out of control
so...... back to owl mail then?
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.
I thought they used some E2E implemented for them by the Signal team.
Have they already butchered it completely?
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.
Considering the zero byte article using anything from Meta is a FAFO moment.
It’s like the de facto messaging app for a good portion of the world
I have a buddy in Japan who was a foreign exchange student here in the U.S. years ago. When he went back home I had to use Line to talk to him, I tried for years to get him to use Signal and after years of nagging he agreed to start using Discord..... well at least it's not Whatsapp.....
It's really big in Europe for some reason.
One of the first movers, so many chat groups are still on there and it's very difficult to make people move. Many people simply don't care about privacy, ads, user experience and what not, they just want the convenience of staying in the chat groups they are already in. A shame really.
Because SMS is trash, most of Europe doesn't use iPhones and WhatsApp was one of the first messaging apps, so yeah.
Which is funny, because it’s very popular in Asian countries and Mexico too.
Some of us don’t have another choice. All (but 1) of my support groups are on WhatsApp and only 1 is on signal.
All our clients use it. It's bloody annoying. I have dozens who use WhatsApp, and like three who use Signal. Ironically, the three that use Signal also use WhatsApp and guess which one they use to contact us?
It's a problem when it's got mass market traction to get people to switch. I'm still trying to get off Messenger but some people insist on it... Going to have to get firm about that.
All of my community groups are on there, including the school parents one. My choice is to not participate in the community or have Whatsapp... Or worse, Facebook.
You're shocked to learn that people use an app with over 9 billion installs. Are you just fucking stupid?
I had to do it because many use it and I was not. If you want to communicate in certain parts of the world, this is the only way. I wish everyone would go to Signal or Telegram but everyone are not me.
Looks like I need an alternative. An alternative for which there is still no prospect of enshitification. Which services are neither American, Chinese nor Russian? Anything from Europe?
Signal is American but run by a non profit so it can't be sold and is open source under GPL3 without a CLA from what I can see so it's unlikely they would ever go closed source.
You may also get invited to a US military intelligence chat too. Bonus!
Will check it out, thank you!
Signal also has been a leader when it comes to encryption and metadata protection. Their cryptographic protocols are public domain and are the gold standard for private messaging from pretty much every perspective other than decentralisation. (it's still centralised)
I see a lot of people saying it's time to switch to Signal, and I mean I agree in principle, it's my main messaging app, but I don't see how it can scale. It runs off of donations and the only reason it's still functioning is because the users that are there are above averagely passionate about it and willing to donate. If it became the defacto messaging app I fear that there is no way they would be capable of financing that level of traffic.
I'd probably still use it if I had to pay for it
I mean, there are some who will be willing to do that, but the vast majority of average people won't pay for something if a free version exists (like WhatsApp)
Edit: Ok I just Googled it and apparently their operational costs are less than 1$ per user per year which is far less than I expected. That's way more sustainable in that case, possibly even through just donations.
Even if they charged 1.99 they'd be making a decent cut for future investment (they are a nonprofit).
GrapheneOS lives on donations too. Its definately possible.
I mean comparing it to GrapheneOS doesn't make much sense, they don't have recurring costs.
What, like salaries?
https://grapheneos.org/hiring
No, they don't have recurring costs that scale with their size. The whole original point of my argument was that Signal is fine now because its userbase is above averagely passionate about it and willing to donate, but if it were to become mainstream that would mean the percent of its users donating would go down whilst its cost would go up, in other words its costs would outscale its revenue. This doesn't apply to GaprheneOS as their costs don't scale with the number of users.
I think you're missing the point. All I was saying is that both Signal and Graphene are both nonprofits and both seem to be doing okay with their donations business model.
And donations aren't just a euro here and there from users. Proton is rumoured to be one of Graphene's supporters.
What app?
Really though, what was the main use for this kind of chat app? Genuinely since I assume there is one, I just don't know it since I never had a reason to use it. Was it encrypted? Cause I get using specifically encrypted messaging systems, but if it's not, was it that good of an option over other chat apps?
It was SMS, but better. It has been the message platform of choice for pretty much everyone in my country for well over a decade, not as many options existed back then.
I hate how every single messaging app with SMS integration eventually drops it, sending me back to whatever stock bullshit came with my phone.
In the UK. SMS were not free to send. In fact, MMS are still not free to send today. This is what WhatsApp solved, instant messaging that uses your data and alas has no additional costs.
Popularity grew, which is why Meta purchased it, and we are now where we are today.