[d3vmax]

Alice Newton-Rex, head of product at WhatsApp: “Alongside of private messaging, people were saying they wanted to hear more about topics, teams and organizations across WhatsApp.”

- I am pretty sure NO ONE asked to hear about more topics and organizations across whatsapp.

[_Algernon_]

Translation: After going through a far too large number of focus groups that didn't want it we finally found one that phrased a reply in such a way, that after removing context and playing Chinese whispers up the management chain, can be interpreted as them wanting ads.

[TeMPOraL]

Nah, it's even simpler than that: after shoving enough surveys in users' faces (as they seem to semi-regularly do across all Meta products; I've had at least 2 in WhatsApp alone over the past few months), they've collected enough misclicks and drunk responses to be able to interpret them as lots of people wanting ads.

[averageRoyalty]

Australian?

We're one of only a few countries[1] who call the game Chinese Whispers.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_game

[EbNar]

I'd literally PAY for a mod taking away the "updates" tab. I don't care about stories nor I want channels shoved in my face. I just need to message someone, from time to time.

[fanwood]

I found the solution by convincing all my friends and family, one by one, to move to Signal. I still use Whatsapp for people who did not migrate, but it's surprisingly possible (if not easy) to convince people to use another app

[noname120]

Well you're in luck because it's in the GreaseMilkyway filters out of the box: https://github.com/kasnder/GreaseMilkyway/blob/main/app/src/...

[kace91]

Thankfully it’s not intrusive - you can pretty much ignore the bottom menu and have adfree chat, I’ve been doing it for years.

The moment they start placing calls to action and distraction in that view is the moment people will move - telegram is a drop in replacement with more features, I won’t argue it’s the ideal choice but at least it keeps meta on their toes as a potential competitor.

[dotancohen]

You'll love Telegram, then.

And I fully expected to be contradicted by people telling me that they can't live without WhatApp because their contacts use it. I've never installed WhatsApp and my contacts can either contact me on any non-spyware app they choose, or by SMS. It actually works, telling people that you don't have WhatsApp.

[barrell]

The questionnaire that produced these results:

Would you like to hear more about topics, teams, and organizations? If no, please explain using at least 1000 characters (required)

[ ] yes [ ] no

[jasonjayr]

pretty easy to copy and paste the question about 100 times to get the 1k char minimum :)

[pfortuny]

"People"->Management and C-suits.

[camillomiller]

How do one cope on a day to day basis with this level of blatant bullshittery, apart from justifying it with a golden salary? Is this person aware that her role is to enact a farce, or even engineer such farce?

[Bluestein]

(And, to begin with, the whole notion of them having to/having had to focus-group these decisions - so as to, perhaps - give them a "veneer" of grassroots pseudo-democracy is preposterous.-

Why don't they just come out and say "because, profit!" or some good ol' fashioned BS about "value-creation" or some other American thing like that ...)

[JohnKemeny]

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

[yard2010]

It's either "if you can't beat them join them" or "kill it with fire".

[yarekt]

Pay for services that you use instead of forcing companies to rely on ad revenue to run their useful service?

I get it though, no one wants to pay for 100s of little free marginally useful things we use every day, but if you look back at what whatsapp did in the beginning, the £3 a year they were asking is so worth it

[jorl17]

While I definitely oppose ads in WhatsApp, I do know several people who use WhatsApp as a tool to get news, know what's going on in their town and/or community (sports club, etc), among other things. It's their way of being in the know, their reddit, RSS feed, news client, etc. I am sure that no one asked for ads and that people will get very little value out of having ads shown to them. Also, no one went around "asking for ads". Nonetheless, I am also pretty positive many people do want to “hear more about topics and organizations across WhatsApp". In fact, until a year ago I wasn't really aware of just how much people live in these WhatsApp islands/bubbles, but clearly they do!

[whiplash451]

It's the usual Facebook trick: run an AB test with and without ads, observe CTR and sales without too much drop off on one side and conclude that "everyone is better off with ads" (without really trying to filter out bot traffic)

[a4isms]

They had Sir Humphrey Appleby run a poll: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks

[higeorge13]

TBH the product team in whatsapp needs to find some way to be meaningful. What could justify being a head of product or product manager in a chat app? New emojis? Gif support? New backgrounds? No, let's just make whatsapp like instagram. She's going to get a promotion now or move on to some new business as chief product officer.

No offence to the product team, i know that this is how it works in tech. It's the same for engineering and design teams in every single b2b/b2c business. There is no concept of feature completeness anymore, every single service has to copy from others or be something instead of 10 other services.

[cout]

I did appreciate the ads on Facebook circa 2010. They were often for niche products I had not heard of and were genuinely interested in. I can't say it's like that anymore, sadly, but I can imagine someone genuinely appreciating exposure to something new.

[heresie-dabord]

From TFA:

"Meta’s ad business is “in as strong a position now as it’s ever been,” said Brian Wieser, an analyst and founder of the consulting firm Madison and Wall. The company’s share of the global digital ad business is around 15 percent, he said. Last year, almost all of Meta’s $164 billion in revenue came from advertising."

TL;dr: Advertising business injects more advertising.

[storus]

People = upper management in this case. They are people too (at least until they get automated away by some LLaMA in the future).

[mirekrusin]

She didn't mean "users", she meant "people at her work".

[zuppy]

these guys don’t use their own product. everyone i know uses only 2 things: direct message and group chats.

everything else is just noise.

[anshumankmr]

How long before they make it into a Slack/Teams competitor?

[mirekrusin]

I've never seen ads in slack?