WhatsApp won't be free for all, soon
To make WhatsApp a better place for users – and for the company to actually make a profit – there'll be some money involved, soon. The WhatsApp Business announcement released this week suggested that the WhatApp Business app will soon cost cash to use – for businesses, but not all businesses. The company suggested that sone businesses will have to pay to send "certain messages" – but not all.
"Businesses will pay to send certain messages so they are selective and your chats don't get cluttered," said a WhatsApp representative. It is through the WhatsApp for Business version of the app that businesses may soon have to start dishing out the cash. Not always, but only if they're slow to the trigger when replying to requests from users.
Though the WhatApp Business API, businesses will still be able to respond to customer messages for free for 24 hours. If they do not reply in time, they will have to pay if they wish to reply. In this way, Businesses of all sorts will be encouraged to quickly reply to all requests, and if a user gets a late reply, they'll know the business wanted so badly to reply to them that they payed WhatsApp to do so.
No new charges for regular WhatsApp users
As it's always been, WhatsApp will absolutely not – thus far – charge for regular users to use their service. The only charges one might incur are with their own data provider if they go over their set limits for data. WhatsApp will not request that any user pay any sort of fee, and any such requests should be treated as hoaxes or worse.
Any sort of payment requested in WhatsApp for everyday users is not – for certain, not – from WhatsApp itself. Take caution in finding messages of this sort – they're probably malicious!