Petrovic Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 WhatsApp is one of the world's most popular communications services - and it looks set to become even more widely used in the months ahead, as it has announced the end of its annual subscription fee. Until now, WhatsApp has been free for the first year of usage, after which it has requested a fee of $0.99 USD per year. But the company - which was acquired by Facebook two years ago - acknowledged today that "this approach hasn't worked well": Quote 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. However, as Re/code reports, while the company is phasing out its subscription fees, it won't be offering refunds to those who have already paid. Of course, this raises the obvious question of how WhatsApp will make money in the future as it's eliminating its main source of income, but it says it's not planning to balance the books by flooding the app with third-party ads: Quote Naturally, people might wonder how we plan to keep WhatsApp running without subscription fees and if today's announcement means we're introducing third-party ads. The answer is no. Starting this year, we will test tools that allow you to use WhatsApp to communicate with businesses and organizations that you want to hear from. That could mean communicating with your bank about whether a recent transaction was fraudulent, or with an airline about a delayed flight. We all get these messages elsewhere today – through text messages and phone calls – so we want to test new tools to make this easier to do on WhatsApp, while still giving you an experience without third-party ads and spam. Full Article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sujith Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 Kind of feel sad for the guys who paid for the 5 year subscription. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rudrax Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 That's a good thing. They wasn't asking more though. If this new policy degrades the IM service, I would rather be happy to pay for the old policy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Batu69 Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 Thread moved from software news forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airstream_Bill Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 33 minutes ago, sujith said: Kind of feel sad for the guys who paid for the 5 year subscription. My First Bill would be coming up in a month. I think from the way I read it I will have to pay. Ha Ha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnakeMasteR Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 5 hours ago, sujith said: Kind of feel sad for the guys who paid for the 5 year subscription. Paying upfront for so many years is a bad idea anyway, services can pretty much change over night. I got a notification today that the service has been extended for another year to 2017, next month my free year would have been expired. Good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airstream_Bill Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 Just got a Notification Message from WhatsApp. New Upgrade Extension, Lifetime! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kokain Posted January 20, 2016 Share Posted January 20, 2016 So emm, whats better Viber or WhatsApp in general? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rudrax Posted January 20, 2016 Share Posted January 20, 2016 14 hours ago, Airstream_Bill said: Just got a Notification Message from WhatsApp. New Upgrade Extension, Lifetime! Me too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rahull Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 i will try whats app shortly.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vissha Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 Beware!!! Facebook is playing with WhatsApp users' privacy even more!!! Earlier, Facebook said WhatsApp will be a separate component and it won't be merged with any of its own. Also, they said no one will be allowed to change WhatsApp's developments. Now, WhatsApp latest builds have an option to link to Facebook. This will surely be a major privacy issue as the app's future builds would require more permissions which will almost provide access to all our data and activity with the phone. Fb have earlier tracked non-users and got sued by many. Now, this will anger many people. Hence, it is time to switch to alternatives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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