It has been reported here several times in November 2018 that, starting this year in 2020, WhatsApp will begin running ads through its status update calendar. However, something has changed. The group was dissolved.
According to what Wall Street Journal is reporting, the team that had been working on building ads into WhatsApp was disbanded in recent months, with their work subsequently “deleted from WhatsApp’s code.”
Though Facebook still ultimately aims to integrate ads into WhatsApp’s Status feature, for now, the app will remain ad-free. The company’s desire to monetize WhatsApp, which it acquired for $22 billion in 2014 with billions of users onboard the app.