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Nobody actually paid for WhatsApp. At least, nobody I know off. They supposedly required you to pay 1€ a year after the first year, but everybody kept using it
by hpbd 8y ago
Nobody actually paid for WhatsApp. At least, nobody I know off. They supposedly required you to pay 1€ a year after the first year, but everybody kept using it for free forever. I'd say they never made any money.
- gsich 8y agoThis. But not on iOS, they had to pay.
- hpbd 8y agoThey made it free on iOS too one year before they were acquired by Facebook: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/whatsapp-on-ios-now-free https://www.wired.co.uk/article/whatsapp-on-ios-now-free
- kylemclaren 8y agoYep, been using it on iOS for years and have never paid a single cent.
- rorykoehler 8y agoThey had $7m in the bank (from this $1 fee) when they were acquired if memory serves me correct.
- octorian 8y ago> Nobody actually paid for WhatsApp. At least, nobody I know off. People did pay. Its just that the charging was somewhat selective. Obviously you and your friends weren't in the group that was selected. Originally, it was a paid app ($1) on the iPhone. Eventually, that was dropped in favor of using in-app billing to actually charge the $1/year on Android... but this was only enforced in a few selected countries at first. Once the Facebook acquisition happened, this effort was dropped. If it hadn't happened, then charging users would have expanded gradually over time.
- emptyfile 8y agoOr people would just mass jump to Viber or Telegram or any other messaging app... I can tell you with confidence that very few users in eastern Europe would pay even an euro for an app that used to be free and has free alternatives. In fact my friends and I discussed that exact particular scenario when we once got a notification from WhatsApp about future payments.
- hpbd 8y agoSame here in Spain. I mean, let's be honest, it's just a chat application. It is almost trivial to build and maintain. And since it uses your phone number, there is no friction to switch to another app--if they decided to charge for it, Telegram would eat it alive in months.
- code_sloth 8y ago> It is almost trivial to build and maintain. I'm interested to know what you've made or helped to make that is more complex and more difficult to maintain than whatsapp.
- hpbd 8y agoAre you suggesting that building a chat application where most of the chats are one-to-one is a complex problem, computer science-wise? The fact that there are hundreds of chat apps, and that they could manage hundreds of millions of users with just 50 employees proves that that is false. I could build a chat app typing with my cock, and I'm sure you could too. We don't do it because we know the market is already saturated as it is... because of how easy it is.
- dang 8y agoPlease don't do this here.
- octorian 8y ago