Hasn’t WhatsApp always been free? That’s the question I asked when I got wind of this news. I mean, I know they asked me to pay a $1/year subscription fee some time ago, but though I didn’t pay, I was still able to keep using the app. That incident definitely made me believe the app was free after all.
Well it turns out that while some of us never paid the $1/year annual subscription fee to use the app, some other users had to pay because their access to the app was blocked when they failed to do so.
Anyways though, all that is now in the past as the company announced that starting from today, 18 January 2016, no user anywhere in the world would be required to pay to use the app.
In a blog post announcing its decision, the company wrote; “For many years, we’ve asked some people to pay a fee for using WhatsApp after their first year. As we’ve grown, we’ve found that this approach hasn’t worked well. Many WhatsApp users don’t have a debit or credit card number, and they worried they’d lose access to their friends and family after their first year. So over the next several weeks, we’ll remove fees from the different versions of our app and WhatsApp will no longer charge you for our service.”
The company also said that it would be keeping its promise of remaining ad free by not introducing third-party ads as a means to earn revenue. Instead, it would be looking to provide businesses with tools that can help them connect and communicate with their customers via their app.
Well, thank you guys at the helms of WhatsApp for keeping your word by not introducing third-party ads. People like me find those ads annoying and distracting most of the time. So thanks again.
