Whatsapp Will Become Free, Companies Can Pay To Reach Users (nytimes.com)

speedplane writes: The popular messaging service Whatsapp will soon become free (they previously charged $0.99 per year after the first). The troubling news is that to compensate for the lost revenue, companies will now be able to pay to contact users directly. "[Whatsapp founder] Mr. Koum said that his team was still experimenting with how such services could work, and that many companies were already using the messaging service, particularly in developing countries, to connect with mobile-savvy customers." If this smells like advertising, Whatsapp vehemently disagrees. A portion of their statement reads: "...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."

Comments

Telegram

[ickleberry]

"Companies can pay to reach users" - well that's going to send a lot of users reaching for Telegram and other apps. Do these big corporate f*cks never learn, it's all fun and games when the company is young and full of hipsters giving away this hip new product for free but when the corporate magnates come in and try to milk their userbase for what it's worth it's usually game over.

Re:Telegram

[WiPEOUT]

If you're going to suggest an app, Signal is the one. For one, it's open source. Second, it's backed by the EFF and a number of luminaries not the least of whom is Edward Snowden.

https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/...

Re:Telegram

[NotInHere]

There are a few startups which I think have succeeded in actually improving the situation compared to before. Take github for example. It bases on an open standard (git), and its reachable with a web browser. Together with the fact that it doesn't really require any data from you when setting up an account, unlike facebook or google, and that its ad-free, its in fact a real improvement over sourceforge.net (sorry dice) with svn. Yes, part of the improvement is linus' fault (git), but still github has done alot in order to improve and simplify user experience, compared to sf.net. That combined with the different business model gives a better product for open source software, and a great product for closed source software as well (where sf.net has no offerings afaik).

Stackoverflow is similar. Its greatest achievement is in my eyes to replace phpbb and its friends with forum software that puts the best and working answer into the foreground, eliminating spam that would (like the "me too or thanks" stuff) make it harder to find the answer. Yes, many people see it as the temple of cargo cult programming, and the community is great but still large parts of it seem to like boost, but it is a real actual help with common problems with software, and many smart people like Mark Adler answer questions there, their answers being smart as well. Its basically a community maintained FAQ page.

But whatsapp is an example of worsening the situation. It replaces an open (SMS/xmpp/e-mail) protocol by something proprietary. Also, its actively tried to stop the spread of alternative implementations, that connect to their service. If a company maintains such a close control of their product, it can abuse it in the future much easier, because the open environment around it has a much harder time spawning a fork.

Both stackoverflow and github have found ways how to make money without fucking their users, and controlling their product tightly, and they live great from the money. And the cool thing is that they already serve as source of inspiration for people who make similarly great products (take travis CI for example), and stackoverflow is actively trying to get out of the "developer" niche, I hope they will be successful and become a reference in non-technical fields as well.

Re:Telegram

[mlts]

The EFF is one party which gets my respect. Signal looks interesting. It reminds me of the old standby app on Android, called TextSecure, which not just was a decent app for texting, but stashed the messages somewhere encrypted, as a secondary layer of protection. I wish the iOS version had a PIN or the ability to use the fingerprint scanner, just for additional security for messages on the app.

Personally, my ideal app would be one that piggybacks of of existing protocols, but uses OpenPGP for its endpoint encryption. This way, it provides a standard for adding keys, it would be compatible with a ton of existing code, OpenPGP is a known, secure quantity with decades of debugging behind it, and it would make having to worry about transport encryption less of an issue. Messages could be stored with a NNTP-like protocol (where one server would store, forward, then expire when the server's disk space hit a high water mark), or a more direct protocol could be used. Since there are so many transport protocols to choose from, separating the endpoint encryption from the protocol would allow for a lot of flexibility.

Re:Telegram

[UnsignedInt32]

Signal looks interesting. It reminds me of the old standby app on Android, called TextSecure, which not just was a decent app for texting, but stashed the messages somewhere encrypted, as a secondary layer of protection.

Naturally, because Signal is the successor of TextSecure. They have merged functionalities of TextSecure and RedPhone into one, and that's Signal, to make it consistent with their iOS offering.

Re:Telegram

[hackertourist]

Signal shares one of Whatsapp's big drawbacks: it uses phone numbers as addresses, so it only works on devices that have a phone number assigned. There is a desktop version, but "Signal Desktop links with your Android device". I want a messaging service that works everywhere, not just on mobile phones. Looks like I'm sticking with email for a while longer.

Of course it's not ad

[Overzeetop]

It's a content delivery option for those who wish to support What's App by leveraging their assets to ensure reliable delivery to the subset of mobile-savvy users which may provide reciprocal interaction to the content initiator.

If you're interested, you can contact them to discuss the operational synergies available and plan a one-time or ongoing messaging strategy.

Re:Of course it's not ad

[Anonymous Coward]

Dammit, I have mod points but there's no "+1 fuck you" option.

first

[Anonymous Coward]

I am the first person to respond to this thread. thought that would never happen.

That sort of thing would be okay if

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

...the company offered paid users who don't want their personal details exploited in a way that they didn't initially sign for the option of closing their accounts before the change of business plan. Otherwise, it's a crass bait-and-switch.

It's a feature

[IMightB]

Never ssaw this coming after the FaceBook Acquisition.

Nobody expects the Facebook Acquisition

Absolutely not advertising

[SuperKendall]

Advertising is what you encounter as a byproduct of doing other things.

Companies "reaching out to you" to send you messages directly has another name already - spam.

BTW this practice is supposed to be against Apple's app terms of service, and they do block some apps based on this - but I've seen some apps (recently Regal Cinemas) sending blatant promotional advertising over push. Really annoying and the quickest way an app can find itself in the rubbish bin.

Anyone paid?

[wvmarle]

I've heard about this US$0.99/year after the first year.

I'm a WhatsApp user for several years now. I never paid anything for it, nor did it bug me for payment.

Even if everyone would pay that $0.99 fee, I can't imagine the service to be financially viable. It's just too cheap. Also makes me wonder who paid WhatsApp's bills over the past years.

It's always been free for me

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no clue why, but I never spent money on Whatsapp, despite having been using it for several years. Every year there's a message saying that my subscription has been extended until February of next year. It beats as to why that happens.

Thats a textbook example

[Z80a]

Of "If you're not paying for a product, you are the product".

Re:"Messaging service"?

[xvan]

1) SMS are still not free in lot's of the world, and obscenely expensive in comparison to the data fees.
2) e-mail is SOooo 90's, lot's of people not even check it any more.
3) Default messaging apps (Google’s and Apple's ) are still not interoperable, some people never generate / are aware of generating an ID for those.
4) Facebook is not universal, not all facebook users use facebook on the phone, and there is people actively avoiding it for multiple reasons.
5) Whatsapp is free , just works TM and filled the niche first.

Re:"Messaging service"?

[xlsior]

Why the hell are people using a "messaging app"? Don't most peoples' phones have messaging built in? Mine certainly does.

WhatsApp started offering free messaging at a time when most mobile companies around the world would still charge for each and every SMS sent (and received). They were in the right place at the right time in the early days of the smartphone, and where able to get a critical mass of users to the point that in many countries they ARE the default text messaging platform.

Keep in mind that some carriers would still charge for international text messages, even if they would be free within your own country -- WhatsApp never charged for those either.

In the US free text messages is/was much more common and they never captured a huge portion of the messaging market there, but on a global scale they currently have about a billion active users a month, which is not that far behind the marketshare of Facebook itself.

Re:"Messaging service"?

[Jack Griffin]

SMS doesn't have features like status, message read confirmation etc, plus Messaging Apps use data which is mostly free (if you find some free wi-fi - quite common), whereas SMS uses the cellular network and is expensive is a lot of places (not ideal for teens and young/poor people).

Re:Snowden a "luminary"???

[JazzLad]

a person who inspires or influences others, especially one prominent in a particular sphere.

Seems to fit ...