Thats why you never paid WhatsApp
WhatsApp is a fee, but not for everyone. That's why the decision to remove the annual subscription service affects only a proportion of users. In recent hours WhatsApp said officially just annual subscription of 89 cents. In many rejoiced, many others have begun to think that soon will be the data of the service users to be money that will send back the note messaging platform.
Moreover, the phrase "if the service is free, the product is you" is often repeated has demonstrated to have strong elements of truth. Whatever the evolution of WhatsApp in the months to come, it is interesting what happened in the past few hours, also in comments on Tom's Hardware: a large group of people wrote that he had never paid a yearly subscription to WhatsApp. Why? What happened? An article published on VentureBeat is more clarity on how it was handled the service in recent years. Some aspects are known, others less so.
"It was found that the requirement to pay or not depends on the annual subscription to WhatsApp much since you joined the service and even the country in which you live," says the journalist Paul Sawers. Up to July 2013 required WhatsApp iPhone users to pay to download the app, which is a single payment. Then the company has aligned its offering on iOS and Android and made the app free to download and use during the first year, requesting a donation for each subsequent year.
"But, as a gesture of good will towards those who were already using WhatsApp, the company gave users access to existing life in the service. Even if they had changed their device, keeping the same number, these people would not have to pay a dime ".
The vast majority of users WhatsApp app was recorded in the last two years, so the decision of the CEO affects many people. The first subscribers to the service, however, were probably already enjoying unlimited free use.
The company has also chosen not to have an annual membership in many countries, such as India, where many people do not have a credit card and can not pay his debt. In short, the decision of the last few hours evens the business model and allows the company to open new perspectives on a global scale, they speak of making a platform WhatsApp contact companies and customers, but how this will happen is something that we will discover only future.
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