WhatsApp was a 99 pence/cents app for years before it was sold to Meta. It didn't become free until some time after the sale.
Being paid never hurt its adoption at all in the UK. Teenagers like me were perfectly happy to pay 99p to get inter-platform IM.
> Being paid never hurt its adoption at all in the UK. Teenagers like me were perfectly happy to pay 99p to get inter-platform IM.
To offer a counter example, it definitely did in Venezuela, at least in the beginning, where it initially lost dominance to BBM
Back then online payments were not that common, and most cards had weird restrictions on using USD in general
In the US, it was advertised as $1/year, but I recall never having to pay it.
> Speaking at the DLD conference in Bavaria, Jan Koum confirmed that the $0.99 annual fee will be scrapped, effective immediately. Previously, WhatsApp had been free for the first year, with the fee charged for every subsequent year. Long-term users of the iOS version were given free use for life, as a thanks for paying a fee to download the app when it had a one-off charge.
* https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/18/whatsapp-...