Despite WhatsApp having been around for years and with Facebook paying a whopping $16 billion to acquire them, the company has yet to figure out how exactly monetize the app. Previously, WhatsApp could be bought as a one-off purchase, and later it was suggested that this could be an annual subscription, but ultimately the app ended up being completely free.
However, last year it was revealed that Facebook had plans to introduce ads to the app, and now WhatsApp has confirmed that ads will indeed be coming to its app in 2020. This was revealed by Matt Navarra who shared a photo on Twitter of a presentation slide shown off at the Facebook Marketing Summit in the Netherlands.
As per the announcement last year, these ads will only show up in WhatsApp Statuses, similar to how some Instagram ads are inserted in between Stories. The good news is that if you don’t use the WhatsApp Status feature all that much, then chances of you coming across these ads are pretty slim.
https://twitter.com/MattNavarra/status/1130811380590895104
Thankfully the design of these ads aren’t too intrusive so you should still be able to use the app just fine without any interruptions. Also, they will only be coming in 2020 so there is still time for you to start looking for WhatsApp alternatives if this really bugs you.
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