My relationship with WhatsApp – From Love to Frustration

WhatsApp, an app that has become deeply ingrained in our daily lives, making it hard to imagine a day without using it. I still vividly remember the day I downloaded the app for the first time. Back then, it was a paid app on iOS. Plain vanilla and straightforward app interface intrigued me. The idea of being able to send unlimited messages free of cost seemed unbelievable. I almost immediately fell in love with WhatsApp, until it was acquired by Facebook.

Upon Facebook acquisition, I realized that the primary focus would shift towards monetizing WhatsApp. Fast-forward to today, WhatsApp has become no less (and perhaps even more) of a spam channel for marketers and fraudsters, much like SMS. But it doesn’t stop there. The relentless pursuit of tech companies towards increasing time spent on the app has made the situation worse.

Entering, WhatsApp status. I believe this feature was introduced solely to further increase the time users spend on the app. While I do understand that some people love this feature and find it as a great tool for marketing and broadcasting, what bothers me is the absence of an option to opt out. I fail to comprehend why tech companies do not provide the ability to opt out of a feature that is not the core use case for many users.

I believe it’s not too much to ask from tech giants: the freedom to have a switch to turn a feature on or off. I’m certain that many people would resonate with my thoughts.