By now you surely know the news: Elon Musk has bought Twitter. The billionaire spent billions of dollars to acquire the social network and announced that his first steps would be to open-source the algorithm Twitter uses, which is a genuinely good thing, and to “authenticate” real users, supposedly to…

You’ve surely noticed the trend. More and more things that we used to simply pay for and use however we see fit are now transitioning to a subscription system. The term “software as a service” has become mundane, content creators are all relying on Patreon subscriptions, GamePass is a thing…

If you’ve ever had a particularly nasty week where nothing went your way, you should know exactly how Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook and WhatsApp, must feel right now. In the span of a few days news broke that the company is underperforming financially, its products are losing users…

Almost a year ago, I wrote an article on Google’s FLoC — an algorithm that was supposed to replace third-party cookies and, according to Google’s dubious claims, protect user privacy when it came to targeted ads. If you’ve read that one or, in fact, almost any article about FLoC, you…

Close to a year ago, Apple released its new product — the AirTag. Rumored to be in development nearly two years before their unveiling, AirTags caused quite a stir immediately upon release. Much of it was positive, as people praised the idea of making a tiny tracker that, in theory…

If you’re a fan of Signal, the encrypted messaging app that I have covered quite a few times, you already know the news — Moxie Marlinspike, the brains behind the app’s encryption and its somewhat controversial CEO, has stepped down from his role. Marlinspike stated that Signal’s 30-person team will…

In these tumultuous days, the world is divided and everyone has an opinion. It’s hard to blame people for being overly emotional in their discussions on particular topics, especially when it’s just casual talks between friends. However, a recent trend in reporting about social apps and the internet in general…

For most successful apps, the choice comes sooner or later — how to monetize. No matter how pure one’s intentions are, supporting an app that serves millions of people takes money, so monetization isn’t always some flight of fancy or a cash grab. This was felt particularly acutely in the…

On November 29, Rolling Stone revealed an internal FBI document, exposing how often messaging services cooperate with the government agency. The list includes all the top names in messaging — WhatsApp, iMessage, Telegram, Viber, Signal. For most, the document seems quite favorable, but WhatsApp got the short end of the…