
Facebook to Show Ads on Messenger to Bolster Revenue Growth - JumpCrisscross
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-to-show-ads-on-messenger-to-bolster-revenue-growth-1499790600
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osrec
Yet another reason to uninstall Facebook, if you haven't done so already. I
want a social network that lets me be social when I want, without forcing it
down my throat (never ending birthday notifications were the final straw for
me).

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zeep
The website is pretty bad too, but ads are easy to block and it gives Facebook
less rights on your device (as opposed to native app).

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osrec
It's an option, but now I just use WhatsApp. I have a small number of groups
for the people I care about, and now that WhatsApp has better archiving, I
find it quite a pleasant user experience. I can even see photos someone shared
to my group more than a year ago. I find Facebook redundant, because I don't
aspire to be a pseudo-celebrity amongst people who hardly know me!

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prezjordan
My dystopian view of the future is one where bots will show up in your
Messenger conversation and offer you deals "Hey I heard you guys were hungry,
here's $2 off your next Chipotle order!" and people won't mind as long as
their getting a deal.

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llukas
In dystopian future they wont get $2 off but restaurant they go to increases
price just for them.

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Spivak
I'm actually pretty surprised restaurants haven't tried a surge pricing model
yet.

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Jach
They have, it's called the lunch special, it just usually surges the opposite
direction so that the restaurant becomes full during lunch times.

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wmeredith
Yep. Or happy hour, or kids eat free on Tuesdays.

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Smerity
Facebook are getting straight up annoying when it comes to their ads. The
worst for me is their in feed video player. When an ad appears on a video, you
can't like, comment, or share the video[1]. You're going to break my flow of
using your own site so you can giddily inform advertisers that I paid more
attention to their ad?

I think Facebook have rapidly transitioned to an ad first, rather than user
first, experience.

[1]: Screenshot - [http://imgur.com/a/hCxOT](http://imgur.com/a/hCxOT)

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LeoNatan25
Once I see those, I will finally remove the last app I have from this wretched
company. Good riddance.

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skinnymuch
They were going to want to monetize Messenger eventually. I doubt it'll be too
many ads since they have other ways to monetize Messenger too. Stickers aren't
the same outside the east.

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gshakir
I don't use Facebook or Messenger. I am glad that I am not on it. I just have
to figure out how to get out of WhatsApp. I also noticed that Facebook eco
system is becoming more closed (no access to Facebook pages unless you sign up
etc) on trying to get more people on it.

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mkagenius
Its difficult enough to have two different apps for facebook. If you don't
install messenger you can't see messages in the native facebook app -- what
kind of regressive technology is this?

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ClassyJacket
I'm very glad Facebook and Messenger aren't the same app. They do different
things and I'd hate to only be able to use one at a time, or have the chat UI
compromised to shoehorn it into Facebook.

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mkagenius
Make the messenger work in both the apps, why force people?

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Spivak
More development time for a small portion of the population that actually
cares?

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mkagenius
I am pretty sure the number would be close to atleast 20% of all facebook
users who do not have messenger app. That's 200M people.

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minimaxir
Facebook will be screwed once everyone jumps ship to WhatsApp in protest.

:P

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gordon_freeman
Why Facebook will be screwed? If I understand it correctly whatsapp is owned
by Facebook and also can introduce similar features of messenger any time. So
migration of users from one app to another should not be a problem for
Facebook. Right?

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mrkrabo
Yes you're right, the joke went right over your head.

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gordon_freeman
I see. I see the point of OP now. :)

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Sir_Substance
Excellent, this will make it much easier for me to persuade people to jump
ship!

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acchow
What's the realistic alternative? Don't say Signal, because I'm sure your
friends have plenty of friends that don't have Signal.

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Sir_Substance
SMS, because in most places local SMS is free.

If that bothers you, other options I use on the regular include Skype, Steam,
Wickr, Mattermost, Slack, email and XMPP.

XMPP's federated nature makes it ideal for this kind of thing, but people
liked the integrated nature of Facebook back in XMPP's hayday. As Facebook
poisons each component of their own product, that integrated nature gets less
attractive. I know one person specifically who only uses Facebook for
messenger these days. This will give me an opportunity to help him leave. I
don't mind what he picks to replace it as long as it doesn't require me to
surrender personal data to use, and there's a rich selection of options to
choose from.

I know that's not good enough for you, I can think of a few people like you
just based on your tone.

I stopped using Facebook in ~2009, and when I did, about 95% of the people I
knew swapped right back to skype without an issue, but 5% never initiated
conversation with me again, because they were so completely consumed by
Facebook they'd forgotten how to even remember people without it. I
occasionally hit them up via other people just to keep in touch, but
ultimately it's not my job to try to give them perspective.

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acchow
I'd be fine with using Skype, the problem is no one I communicate with uses
Skype. Same goes with Steam, Wickr, Mattermost, Slack.

I think everyone uses email, but I don't have most peoples' email addresses.

I'm not saying the technology in alternatives isn't there. I'm saying the
network effect isn't there.

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Sir_Substance
>I'd be fine with using Skype, the problem is no one I communicate with uses
Skype.

Have you tried asking them?

I've had good experience with meeting people half way. I tell people "I'm not
going to use facebook messenger. If you want to know why, I'll grab my laptop
and give you the full hour long litany of every crime they've committed
against their users since the company was founded, but the short version is
I'm just not. I'll use any communication mechanism you chose that a) does not
require facebook or google accounts and b) works even marginally on an android
phone without google play services or a linux desktop.". You'd think that
would be a short list, but it's not, and I've never failed to find something
everyone is happy with. Once it's installed, everyone gets push notifications
and no one actually cares who the provider is.

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Mahn
I wonder whether Ads are an appropriate way to monetize messaging apps. It's
such a fundamentally different context from just mindlessly browsing the news
feed on Facebook or Instagram. I'm sure FB has done their testing but, ads in
an utility app that you want as little in your way as possible like Messenger
or WhatsApp still strike me as something odd.

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CodeWriter23
I got real busy working on a project and dumped Facebook about 4 months ago in
a ruthless mission to delete all distractions. I haven't really missed it. I
can call or text anyone whom I really want to speak to. And when I text
comments or photos to a group SMS, I know Facebook isn't filtering it.

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Simulacra
I've avoided Messenger and the Facebook app altogether. I've come to accept
that my data is being sucked up, and it's a necessary evil, but I just don't
want their apps on my phone. At least give me that in life.

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ravenstine
Already uninstalled Facebook, now I'm uninstalling Messenger. Too bad because
messenger's not that bad but not worth getting ads from. Even Facebook is too
milktoast at this point to even waste time reading their ads for.

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mankash666
And then WhatsApp, the app can be killed, rebranded and re-skinned as FB
messenger, and still retain the promise to customers and regulators about not
advertising or monitoring communication

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chaostheory
I'm surprised it took them this long. It makes sense unless they charge for
API access instead

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intrasight
You've got a smartphone so you've got a browser. No need for Messenger.

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dijit
They block messages on the mobile site.

To bypass it you have to go on someone's profile and tell your phone to
request a desktop site. Then it works.

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51stpage
I'd try [https://mbasic.facebook.com](https://mbasic.facebook.com)

It's mobile centric, browser based and gives you access to Messenger. Also,
doesnt require the "hack" of requesting the desktop site (which may or may not
work.) The trade-off is that lots of automatic Javascripty things don't work
the same way.

It's worked well for me.

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bonoetmalo
We gotta blacklist pay wall sites from HN.

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patrickaljord
How dare they monetize a free service with ads?

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CodeWriter23
Yes they should get the money from selling your BigData profile AND pushing
ads in your face.

