The purchase of WhatsApp by Facebook turns six this Wednesday (19). Mark Zuckerberg’s company paid $ 16 billion for the messenger in 2014, which corresponds to about R $ 38 billion, according to the conversion of the value of the commercial dollar of the time. Today, WhatsApp is the largest instant messaging application in the world, and it is estimated to have more than 1.5 billion active users, of which 120 million are Brazilians.
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However, the messenger has undergone some changes since its acquisition by Facebook. Check below a list of the main changes perceived and experienced by users of the application for Android and iPhone (iOS), ranging from curiosities to rumors of advertising and functions expected from WhatsApp.
WhatsApp has about 1.5 billion users – Photo: Nicolly Vimercate / dnetc
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1. WhatsApp stops charging subscription
Two years after the purchase of WhatsApp by Facebook, the app released a note confirming that it would no longer charge the $ 0.99 annual subscription and maintenance fee after the first free year. The messenger was already known for not displaying advertising, and the note made users wonder how the app would stay up and running, without charging fees.
Facebook clarified that the monetization of the messenger would not be done through advertising or annual fees, and the company’s justification derives from the lack of link between users of the app with the use of credit and debit cards. Facebook said in a note at the time that the billing approach did not work well for this reason and, since users who did not pay the fee would lose access to the messaging app, it finally decided to remove the charge.
2. Disagreement between app founders with Facebook
In 2014, Facebook bought WhatsApp for the sum of $ 22 billion and kept the app’s founders working for the company, which still had some autonomy within the company. But in the years that followed, the founders of WhatsApp, Brian Acton and Jan Koum, chose to stop being part of the Facebook team due to disagreements and incompatibility of ideas with the company.
Facebook’s main source of revenue is advertising, according to the information the social network obtains about users’ lifestyles and purchasing power. Since the founders of WhatsApp cared for the privacy of users and were against using advertising as a means of monetizing it, Facebook’s ideas for the messenger seemed to go against the expectations of both. As a consequence, both Acton and Koum finally decided to leave the company in 2017 and 2018, respectively.
3. Integration with Messenger and Instagram
Facebook reveals integration between the company’s apps – Photo: Tainah Tavares / dnetc
The confirmation of the integration of the apps of the conglomerate belonging to Facebook was made by Zuckerberg in early 2019. The idea of ​​the company’s CEO would be to associate the three platforms – Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp – in order to enable the exchange of content between them for make WhatsApp end-to-end encryption available to all company applications.
Still, the apps would work independently, but it would be possible, for example, to send a message through WhatsApp to Messenger to a friend who does not have a WhatsApp account, which would facilitate interaction between the company’s platforms.
4. Rumors of in-app advertising
The main reason for the disagreements between WhatsApp and Facebook would have been the expectation of using advertisements targeted at users of the messenger. The rumors emerged in late 2018 and took hold with the departure of Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, from Zuckerberg’s company.
The app’s advertising would be displayed through the WhatsApp Status function, similar to the targeted ads that appear to users of Stories, on Instagram. The information was confirmed last year by the messenger team at the event Facebook Marketing Summit 2019, and ads were expected to arrive in the app in early 2020. However, earlier this year, according to a report by Wall Street Journal, the idea was abandoned by Facebook, and the reasons are still controversial.
5. Emphasis on the Facebook brand in the app
WhatsApp from Facebook indicates ownership of the company – Photo: Rubens Achilles / dnetc
In December last year, messenger users noticed the phrase «from Facebook» when they opened the app, and searches for the translation and definition of «from» increased on Google Trends, a Google service that allows monitoring of searches on the platform.
Facebook’s justification for adopting the company’s logo on the app comes from the need to want to better communicate to users about products that are Facebook’s responsibility, while also wanting to differentiate the Facebook app from the company’s brand.
6. Attempted expansion with WhatsApp Pay
WhatsApp Pay emerges as a new service modality for the messaging application, and the idea is to facilitate bank transfers between users of the app. It is speculated that the new service will arrive in Brazil later this year, as it achieved the expected success during a testing period in India – the country with the largest number of active users in the messenger.
This new function that will be made available in the app should work closely with Facebook Pay, which is only available in the United States and allows you to make money transfers through Messenger. The novelty seems to serve as a way of monetizing the app, since the idea of ​​advertising through WhatsApp Status was abandoned by the company.
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