Illustrative image: Gemini In my darker moments, when I’m not wondering about what would happen if we really did have a national blackout (not quite apocalyptic), or if one of our big banks were hit in a cyberattack, meaning no one could get their money (literally: Revelations…), I wonder about the other service that would render life impossible if it were to fail.
I’m obviously not really talking about the City of Joburg. Or about Safa’s travel office.
I’m talking, of course, about WhatsApp.
Facebook didn’t start it, of course. Like so many things that have revolutionised our lives in the past 20 years, it came from a small group of young people in California who were just messing around.
And, like that small group of people who started something that turned out to be genuinely new, they made more than generational money from it. They sold it to Meta for $19-billion (yes, that’s billion).
Now, I don’t think I know a single South African who doesn’t use it in some way.
But Meta’s problem is that they have not been able to monetise it. They have this huge asset but if they were to charge users for it, it would collapse overnight. People would go to the competitors like Telegram or Signal in a heartbeat.
So they’ve turned to advertising.
I’m not convinced it’s really working.
Over the past few years the number of cold calls I get has become simply maddening.
I sometimes feel I’ve lost my phone to them.
It’s now just a device for people to bother me with their stupid AI voices and the insanity of phoning me 15 times.
I don’t know how many more times I need to say it: “I DO NOT, REPEAT FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME, NOT, NEED CAR INSURANCE.”
I also don’t want to sell my house, I don’t need financial help (and certainly not from anyone who just calls me!) and I’m perfectly happy without a lottery of any kind. In fact, if I had my way I’d ban all forms of gambling.
But up until very recently my WhatsApp account has been mine. If my phone number was for other people, WhatsApp was for me.
Every single piece of communication was for my benefit (with the exception of groups where everyone says “Happy Birthday” to everyone else).
It made WhatsApp one of the few things in this life with virtually no drawbacks.
Jamie Oliver ruined all of that. It was Checkers who felt they could put a video of the world’s most irritating cheeky chappie in my WhatsApp. I was subjected to a video of him hitting a drum set (I had other productive thoughts for the drum sticks).
What made it worse was that it started with him saying my name.
If AI really is going to change the world then count me out. I don’t want anything to do it.
Slowly the amount of marketing on my WhatsApp has been increasing. From time to time I get a message from a number I don’t know that just says “hello”. The profile picture is often an attractive young woman. The invitation to financial and romantic ruin is obvious.
Others are a lot more personal.
One enterprising estate agent in my area decided to start sending everyone a weekly message about things happening in the area. I stuck with it for a while and then sent him a message asking him to stop.
He was very polite, we agreed to stay in touch but he’ll stop the advertising.
On one of my neighbourhood groups people regularly advertise their goods and services. From baked cakes to a new local restaurant, it’s all there.
The most heartbreaking are those who say they have a domestic worker in their lives who is looking for more work. Clearly this kind of work is getting harder to find (while hard numbers are tough to come by due to the nature of this work, the domestic worker agency Sweep South suggests 400,000 domestic workers have lost their jobs in the past five years – a very scary number).
Somehow, I don’t mind this kind of advertising at all. It’s from people near me who I want to support. So long as it’s not too often and too pushy.
And if someone does launch a trendy new coffee spot I’m desperate to be the first in my household to find it.
But WhatsApp advertising has its own natural limit. Deep inside its operating code is the “block” function. It’s pretty easy to just block a number, or someone or anything you don’t like. And you can report it too (I have no idea what that really does, but WhatsApp claims the last five messages from the number go to a moderator – whether human or AI is not clear).
I have to thank that group of young people in California for that.
Keeping Jamie Oliver out of our WhatsApp should be an obligation for all of us.
Who knew the word “block” could be so satisfying. DM