WhatsApp is possibly the only company which stood on its words so far, but that's going to change very soon, courtesy of its parent company, Facebook. Since its inception, WhatsApp stated that it would stay away from ads to offer cleaner user experience. Ever since Facebook acquired WhatsApp, there have a lot of talks regarding the company monetising the top instant messaging platform to generate revenue. Finally, it seems like the time has come. Going by a series of tweets posted by WhatsApp watcher, WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is already working on implementing ads on its iOS application. "WhatsApp is already working to implement ads in the iOS app," said WABetaInfo in a tweet.
Where Will Ads Show Up in WhatsApp?
Now you might be wondering how ads will be integrated into WhatsApp? Well, here's the answer. In the next tweet, WABetaInfo stated that WhatsApp would be displayed in the newly introduced Status tab. For example, you keep on scrolling between the statuses of your contacts and in between an ad will appear randomly. That said, Facebook's photo-sharing company, Instagram also has a similar ad-displaying model inside Instagram Stories. So it won't come as a surprise to see ads in the Status tab.
If Facebook goes beyond and displays ads in between the chats, then it will dent the user experience.
WhatsApp is Successful Because it Stayed Away from Ads
One of the key reasons for WhatsApp' successful journey in the lack of ads on the platform. In several other instant messaging apps, ads appear here and there which ruins the entire user experience. But that's not the case with WhatsApp though. After the Facebook acquisition as well, WhatsApp stated that it would stay away from ads, but it has been close to five years since the acquisition and Mark Zuckerberg must be thinking it's the time to implement ads on the platform.
WhatsApp Founders Left Facebook Due to Facebook's Decision on Monetising
One of the major dents for WhatsApp was its founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton leaving Facebook. According to Brian Action who recently sat with Forbes and discussed what he exited the company, Facebook has been after monetising WhatsApp for a while, which he and Koum were against because they always believed in giving a clutter-free experience to the users.
There have talks going on to monetise WhatsApp since 2015 and to escape that WhatsApp came up with WhatsApp Business app to generate some revenue. Both the WhatsApp founders believed on encryption and if monetisation comes to the platform, encryption has to be compromised. Acton said to Forbes as “I sold my users’ privacy to a larger benefit. I made a choice and a compromise. And I live with that every day.”
It's Unknown When Ads are Coming to WhatsApp
Right now, WhatsApp is working on how to implement ads into the platform, but there's no timeline on when the company will start displaying ads though. Having said that, it will be a server-side change.
