A must have app for every smartphone user is Whatsapp. In fact, Google and Apple should pre-install the app to lessen the burden of the users (pun intended).
When WhatsApp originated in early 2010, it had a clear idea to give a user-friendly user interface and no advertisements. These things made Whatsapp a super successful one in the India as well. In fact, every second smartphone user in India uses Whatsapp on daily basis.
For the last 8 years, the multi-platform chatting app didn’t add many features. In fact, after the company was acquired by Facebook, many features like voice calls and video calls were added into the system across the platform.
Every app maker’s intention is to make a user-friendly application that eases out the daily chores and get some profit out of it. As developing an app with constant updates does come cheap. So, initially, Whatsapp had this arrangement, under which, one could use WhatsApp for 1 complete year for free then had to pay INR 99 per year. However, I have been using Whatsapp from 2012 and the subscription was auto renewed every time it expires (good job WhatsApp).
There were many real-time messenger apps like WeChat, Telegram and Hike. Though these platforms offered plenty of features, they couldn’t see the success that Whatsapp saw. After Whatsapp coming under the Facebook radar, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Whatsapp will be free for everyone for the lifetime.
However, present developments on Whatsapp does tend to keep up the “free for everyone” condition. Whatsapp is planning to incorporate UPI payment system and Whatsapp for Business.
What happens if UPI payment system comes to Whatsapp?
We all love PayTM, in fact, at the time of demonetization, PayTM was the go-to payment system due to unavailability of the cash. If UPI payment system is incorporated into the WhatsApp, then it would be more of a universal app like WeChat. However, it might lose some customers as well. In India, people like to use a separate app for separate functionality. So, now we have more than 20 UPI payment system, adding one more thing will just be more cumbersome.
What is Whatsapp Business?
Whatsapp business is something that we already saw, Whatsapp will authorise few contacts and verify them, instead of normal text messages one will receive Whatsapp message. However, it looks like WhatsApp might also share all our contact (making it more like a social media platform). Currently, Whatsapp is known for the security features that offer with mutual exclusivity (no name searching, only if they have their number, they can start a conversation with each other).
In their official blog, Whatsapp said
” We’ll be listening carefully to feedback during our test phase and keeping people informed as we make these tools more widely available,
We don’t have the details of monetization figured out,”
It looks like Whatsapp might charge the users. The question is will it charge users or Business that requires this platform. Keep looking at our blog for further developments on WhatsApp’s next steps.