WhatsApp seems set on introducing ads, but they won't appear in your inbox

fne8w2ah@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 139 points –
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WhatsApp doesn't have an inbox. What are they talking about!?

It has a feed now full of podcasters and tiktokers, the web version offers me to buy ads for the feed right in the front of the messages, every time I open it, disgusting

I don't see that. There's no feed anywhere as far as I can tell. I just see my chats. I didn't create any communities or join any channels. Is that where you see a feed?

It's in the second tab, where stories are. Stories used to stay open, so you could easily see the ones you already watched. Now they disappear into a watched drawer that is by default closed. They need the space to show you channels, like the one of the owner Sugar mountain or random tiktokers.

Are you sure you're talking about WhatsApp? I don't see stories anywhere. Never saw anything like that. Maybe you're talking about Snapchat or Instagram or something else?

Either they haven't rolled this out in your country yet, or you haven't updated the app in a while.

The app is up to date. Maybe you're right and they only deployed this in some countries. How long ago did this show up for you?

I don't use it myself, I've see it on a friends' phone, so good question. Was a while ago though, a few months, maybe?

At least for me on android there are 4 Tabs. Community's, chats, current updates, calls.

Edit: I checked the translation.

I have community, chat, updates, calls. None of them have anything related to stories or feeds.

Wrong translation on my side. Check the updates tab. On more recent versions you've got the "Status", those are the stories people are talking about. Below that are the channels of influencers and other people I don't care about.

Hmm. I see status updates but they are changes in people's status, not stories, there's only ever a handful of updates, and it just shows the names of the people who updated their WhatsApp status, which happens very rarely. There's no feed there, nothing to scroll.

Below that I see Channels, a list of companies to follow, and an "explore more" button. Which I haven't touched and don't intend to. If that's where the feed is... well, I don't know what people expected, it's obviously going to be corporate marketing.