WhatsApp, the $19 billion messaging service is dropping its $1 annual fee. Yes, the messaging service giant wants to reach out to the entire human population now. Founder Jan Koum explained that although the $1 fee isn’t much and there are millions who use the messaging service – that made the traditional SMS obsolete – there are still many who aren’t using WhatsApp, especially those without access to card payments.
The change takes effect from today, and will be a week or two until it reaches everywhere across all versions of the app. This news, however, has raised a lot of concerns among people. The main question was how WhatsApp will earn now that it’s lost its revenue stream. Naturally, the speculations lead towards advertisements.
But before you begin to panic, WhatsApp has stated that advertisements are not coming, claiming that “we will test tools that allow you to use WhatsApp to communicate with businesses and organizations that you want to hear from.” WhatsApp is likely to slowly take over other functions of your phone (it already has voice calling for one) in a bid to make itself more relevant and practical for users. We’ll just have to wait and see what WhatsApp plans for its future.
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