Looks like Facebook and Zuckerberg are saying ‘Money Over Everything’ now. It is no longer news that the big boys of WhatsApp have been trying to further monetize the App. According to reports, ads will soon come to WhatsApp, while user’s information is already been shared with its parent- platform (Facebook). User’s information from WhatsApp to Facebook will help Zuckerberg and friends know their users more.
It will also help target ads based on the information they generate from WhatsApp users. User’s interests, activities and so on, just so the company generate more money by offering target based ads. Still wondering why Zuckerberg is rising higher amongst the world’s richest? #richgang.
WhatsApp Is Left With No Founders
Rewind to 2014 when Facebook acquired the Instant messaging App for $1.5 billion, it’s been 4 years now and we look set for a major change in the way the App works.
In September 2017, Brian Acton a co-founder of WhatsApp penned his resignation. There were no much details about the departure but after a while, Acton tweeted that we should delete Facebook, and he invested heavily on ‘Signal’.
And now more recently in May 2018, news broke about the exit of the other founder of WhatsApp from the company. In his farewell post, Koum didn’t go into details over why he was leaving. Instead, he said: “I’m leaving at a time when people are using WhatsApp in more ways than I could have imagined.”
“The team is stronger than ever and it’ll continue to do amazing things.” So, in a bigger picture now, this means that the two people that actually stands for the Origin Of WhatsApp have left now that Facebook has taken over.
Reports have even emerged from sources like Wall street journal that this could be due to a disagreement between the WhatsApp founders and Facebook CEO Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg. According to the report, FB CEO and COO put increasing pressure on the duo for new business models to earn revenue for the messaging app, which WhatsApp’s founders resisted. The App was built initially with the aim of ‘no ads’.
Whatsapp is slowly becoming facebook
Whatsapp users are meant to enjoy chatting with loved ones without any sudden, unwanted advertisement in the middle of it.
It disrupts your train of thought. It’s like a journey with a lot of turns and pot-holes on the road. Whatsapp users are also meant to enjoy optimum privacy. It is not just the user’s data, the saga might also include weakening encryption so that your chats with others can be tapped into.
- Read also: No More Paid TV Wahala; You Can Now Watch The best football League matches Free On Facebook
If this was the case, it definitely wouldn’t have gone down well with Koum nor Acton just as they had explained in this blog post.
Washington Post had also reported that Koum’s departure was due to clashes over privacy policy and the possible weakening of WhatsApp’s encryption. So, it looks like WhatsApp wants to go in the Facebook direction. Acquire more user data, use it to tailor ads and make more money. We will see how this pans out.
Companies Like Singapore Airlines, Uber, And Others Might Use Whatsapp Ads First
Although we don’t want to see ads on our WhatsApp, we still want to see what it would look like. Maybe the ads will be contained in the status tab. We also hear around 100 companies are already testing the new ad style. Some of the companies are Singapore airlines and the popular Uber.
Whatsapp would boldly represent the only major service that doesn’t display ads today on the internet unlike Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and others. We no longer know how long this would last.