There was a time when we had to pay 89 cents to use WhatsApp. It was a botch

The fact that the smartphone has become a pocket computer is something that has enormous advantages in many aspects. It is a console, a work tool, an agenda and, above all, it remains a great communication device. The telephone function may have remained in the background, but we can be close to those who are far away thanks to social networks and, above all, apps like WhatsApp and Telegram.

They are completely free applications (we give away our data, but that is another topic) and it would seem like a joke to have to pay to use them. However, there was a time when WhatsApp was a paid application. Or, rather, he tried to in some cases.

The revolution arrived. Many things have changed since 2009. We called on the phone, we sent SMS, we talked on Messenger and there was even Tuenti. There were some cell phones that had Messenger, but in the end the most common were SMS and, if you were lucky, the BlackBerry Messenger service, which was free if you had a branded cell phone.

However, everything was about to change. That year, WhatsApp Inc. launched WhatsApp. First it came to iOS, and it did so with something that sounds very strange today: a paywall. Specifically, 79 cents that you had to pay no matter what to be able to use the application. It arrived on Android a year later with a different proposal: one year free and then to pay. Or not.

A little more free, please. This is where the movie starts to get strange because if a service or product is paid, obviously we have to pay to benefit, right? What happened with WhatsApp is that it seemed more like a voluntary payment. Not on iOS, there you had to pay (although there were also users who could download it for free), but on Android things changed.

When you had the application for a year, WhatsApp sent a notification indicating that the free period was ending and you would have to think about paying. The price? 89 cents was not too much, but if users were not used to paying on mobile phones, even less so on Android. However, WhatsApp gave us the option to extend that payment.

A bit of a botched subscription. That is, you could choose to pay, but you also still had the application completely free if you decided not to. This sounds strange and, really, it is. It may also have been what led to the extreme popularity of the application in territories such as Europe, completely displacing SMS. The commotion did not end there. iOS had the aforementioned entry price of 78 cents for a lifetime subscription, but in 2013 it was decided to charge 89 cents annually for new users in this system.

WhatsApp’s business was not clear during those years and a while ago you told us about all kinds of cases: users who paid and others who did not. It is evident that all this happened because WhatsApp allowed it, since if at some point they had wanted all users to pay, they would have forced it.

And Facebook arrived. In the end, everything was resolved in a very simple way and some time after Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp, the application became completely free in 2016.

I have to say that I was always able to use WhatsApp for free. I extended the payment at every opportunity that WhatsApp itself gave me and I never had to spend a single cent on Android. However, I support my colleague Iván’s decision and share that if an app gives you a good service, paying to reward the creators is a good decision.

To use a simile, this is what happens with video games on flat-rate platforms like Game Pass: you can play it on Game Pass, but if you really like it, it doesn’t hurt to buy it. Not only will you own it, but you will also be showing that support to the developer. And, now, we would like to read you in comments: did you pay to use the application or did you do it even if it was not mandatory?

Image | Iván Linares, Alex Alcolea

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