{"id":57993,"date":"2024-10-19T19:32:59","date_gmt":"2024-10-19T19:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/how-does-whatsapp-make-money-its-free-with-some-tricks"},"modified":"2024-10-19T19:52:23","modified_gmt":"2024-10-19T19:52:23","slug":"how-does-whatsapp-make-money-its-free-with-some-tricks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/how-does-whatsapp-make-money-its-free-with-some-tricks","title":{"rendered":"How does Whatsapp Make Money? it’s Free – with some Tricks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Eswatini. <\/strong><\/span>In the past 24 hours I\u2019ve written more than 100 WhatsApp messages.<\/b><\/p>\n

None of them were very exciting. I made plans with my family, discussed work projects with colleagues, and exchanged news and gossip with some friends.<\/p>\n

Perhaps I need to up my game, but even my most boring messages were encrypted by default, and used WhatsApp\u2019s powerful computer servers, housed in various data centres around the world.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a cheap operation, and yet neither I nor any of the people I was chatting with yesterday, have ever parted with any cash to use it. The platform has nearly three billion users worldwide.<\/p>\n

So how does WhatsApp \u2013 or zapzap, as it\u2019s nicknamed in Brazil – make its money?<\/p>\n

Admittedly, it helps that WhatsApp has a massive parent company behind it \u2013 Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram as well.<\/p>\n

Individual, personal WhatsApp accounts like mine are free because WhatsApp makes money from corporate customers wanting to communicate with users like me.<\/p>\n

Since last year firms have been able to set up channels for free on WhatsApp, so they can send out messages to be read by all who choose to subscribe.<\/p>\n

But what they pay a premium for is access to interactions with individual customers via the app, both conversational and transactional.<\/p>\n

The UK is comparatively in its infancy here, but in the Indian city of Bangalore for example, you can now buy a bus ticket, and choose your seat, all via WhatsApp.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur vision, if we get all of this right, is a business and a customer should be able to get things done right in a chat thread,\u201d says Nikila Srinivasan, vice president of business messaging at Meta.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means, if you want to book a ticket, if you want to initiate a return, if you want to make a payment, you should be able to do that without ever leaving your chat thread. And then just go right back to all of the other conversations in your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Businesses can also now choose to pay for a link that launches a new WhatsApp chat straight from an online ad on Facebook or Instagram to a personal account. Ms Srinivasan tells me this is alone is now worth \u201cseveral billions of dollars\u201d to the tech giant.<\/p>\n

Other messaging apps have gone down different routes.<\/p>\n

Signal, a platform renowned for its message security protocols which have become industry-standard, is a non-profit organisation. It says it has never taken money from investors (unlike the Telegram app, which relies on them).<\/p>\n

Instead, it runs on donations \u2013 which include a $50m (\u00a338m) injection of cash from Brian Acton, one of the co-founders of WhatsApp, in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to move as close as possible to becoming fully supported by small donors, relying on a large number of modest contributions from people who care about Signal,\u201d wrote its president Meredith Whittaker in a blog post last year.<\/p>\n

Discord, a messaging app largely used by young gamers, has a freemium model \u2013 it is free to sign-up, but additional features, including access to games, come with a pricetag. It also offers a paid membership called Nitro, with benefits including high-quality video streaming and custom emojis, for a $9.99 monthly subscription.<\/p>\n

Snap, the firm behind Snapchat, combines a number of these models. It carries ads, has 11 million paying subscribers (as of August 2024) and also sells augmented reality glasses called Snapchat Spectacles.<\/p>\n

And it has another trick up its sleeve – according to the website Forbes, between 2016-2023 the firm made nearly $300m from interest alone. But Snap\u2019s main source of revenue is from advertising, which brings in more than $4bn a year.<\/p>\n

The UK-based firm Element charges governments and large organisations to use its secure messaging system. Its customers use its tech but run it themselves, on their own private servers. The 10-year old firm is in \u201cdouble digit million revenue\u201d and \u201cclose to profitability\u201d, its co-founder Matthew Hodgson tells me.<\/p>\n

He believes the most popular business model for messaging apps remains that perennial digital favourite – advertising.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically [many messaging platforms] sell adverts by monitoring what people do, who they talk to, and then targeting them with the best adverts,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The idea is that even if there is encryption and anonymity in place, the apps don\u2019t need to see the actual content of the messages being shared to work out a lot about their users, and they can then use that data to sell ads.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s the old story – if you the user, aren’t paying, then the chances are that you are the product,\u201d adds Mr Hodgson.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Eswatini Follow Africa-Press<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Eswatini. In the past 24 hours I\u2019ve written more than 100 WhatsApp messages. None of them were very exciting. I made plans with my family, discussed work projects with colleagues, and exchanged news and gossip with some friends. Perhaps I need to up my game, but even my most boring messages were encrypted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":57992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-57993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-miscellaneous","tag-eswatini"],"yoast_head":"\nHow does Whatsapp Make Money? it's Free - with some Tricks - Eswatini<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In the past 24 hours I\u2019ve written more than 100 WhatsApp messages. None of them were very exciting. 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