I talked with a professor of advertising to make sense of what this means for all of us who use those social media platforms.

Meta announced that it is adding ads and subscriptions to its WhatsApp messaging app in a June 16 press release. The social media giant, primarily known as the parent company of Facebook, said that the changes will roll out over the next few months and that they are intended to help businesses and organizations grow.

Ads in WhatsApp will be shown only in the app's Updates tab, which is used by as many as 1.5 billion people each day.