Hacker News Reader

Comment by renewiltord | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how many people paid the $5 for WhatsApp back in the day. It gave you nothing but you were able to do it. I think I did.

View on HN

Whatsapp was asking for $1/year [1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/18/whatsapp-...

I've been using WhatsApp when the nominal $1/year fee was still around, but somehow never ended up being actually charged, and I don't know anyone that did.

It's possible that they were only enforcing it in some regions, though.

Indeed. I just ignored the dialog box the first time it popped up. But next year I paid. It was quite a big deal because back then it was equal to my entire monthly cellphone bill in Pakistan.

But I remember other people started to en masse switch to other messengers like Viber(?). And Whatsapp had to stop enforcing the fee.

I was billed 0,99€ (Germany) exactly once, but was able to use WhatsApp without payment for most of the time just by ignoring the notification. I remember that they repeatedly gave grace periods and just set another payment date a few weeks later.

The price changed a few times but they definitely had a lifetime thing once.

All pricing was entirely optional

Here's one reference to a different price (can't find lifetime except for people complaining that Facebook didn't honor it on original ToS)

https://www.wired.com/2011/11/whatsapp-messenger-app/

I have an old receipt in my Google Pay for whatsapp at a whopping 99 cents :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com