Meta hasn’t yet given up its dream of sullying the last uncontaminated product under its belt — WhatsApp. A little under a year ago, it became clear that the Meta-owned messenger was slowly but surely gearing up for a future when WhatsApp would no longer be free of advertisements — if only resigned to the ‘Updates’ tab on your screen.
Invent the problem, sell the ad-free subscription
While ads have yet to show up in the public build of the app, their arrival can’t be too far away now. Android Authority was digging around in the code of the 2.26.3.9 release and discovered strings of code that reference not only ads, but a way to be free of them, though never for good: a monthly subscription fee. What else?
“Since you recently removed your WhatsApp account from your Accounts Center, the price of your subscription for no ads in Status & Channels has decreased. Review your subscription to accept the new price of %1$s/month; or choose to use Status & Channels free of charge with ads,” the code reads.
Read More: WhatsApp is experimenting with parent-managed secondary accounts for kids
It even managed to get the strings of code to turn up inside the app, as seen in the image above. Of course, it’s still unclear exactly when Meta will introduce ads into the app, or how bothersome they will be to the overall experience, prompting the necessity for a subscription. The big question, however, is whether Meta will let every one of its three-billion-plus users in on the secret, or not.
It might seem unlike Meta to turn down money, but it’s actually par for the course. When the company launched ad-free subscription packages for Instagram and Facebook, it only offered them to certain regions, leaving most of the world to simply fend off the ads the way God intended: doomscrolling through the pain.
