Facebook-owned WhatsApp was planning on showing ads but now it won’t be happening anytime soon. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company was working towards building ads but their work was deleted from WhatsApp’s code.
Keep in mind that Facebook still eventually aims to blend ads into WhatsApp’s Status feature, but you won’t be seeing them anytime soon. The social media giant will now focus on features that will “allow businesses to communicate with customers and organize those contacts.”
The original founders, Jan Koum and Brian Acton were against ads. In a blog post that dates back to June 18, 2012, they refer to ads as “insults to your intelligence” and they were interested to “make something that wasn’t just another ad clearinghouse.” While Koum left in 2018, Brian Acton left a year earlier. He also tweeted even #deletefacebook after the Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light.
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