The launch upends its founders’ original mission of creating an app with ‘No Ads! No Games! No Gimmicks!’ This week, WhatsApp did something its founders said it would never do: it’s putting advertisements inside the app. It ends WhatsApp’s decade-plus run of offering an ad-free messaging and calling experience.

Meta rolls out WhatsApp ads and Channel subscriptions as part of a strategy to make money from the app.

In what may be the final straw for some users, ads are officially coming to WhatsApp in an upcoming version that will incorporate Meta's biggest source of revenue into one of the world's biggest messenger apps.