Zuckerberg is learning from Musk? Will WhatsApp charge a subscription fee?

It is learned that due to Zuckerberg's ambition for the Metaverse, Meta has fallen into an embarrassing financial crisis. In order to reduce operating costs, there are reports that Zuckerberg will charge a subscription fee for WhatsApp to make up for the losses of the Metaverse. If the rumor is true, it means that the era of WhatsApp being free is coming to an end.

In 2014, when Facebook (now Meta) bought WhatsApp for $22 billion, one of the first changes it made was to remove the $1 annual fee for the app. Now, with Meta in deep financial trouble, there has been much speculation about whether Zuckerberg will charge a subscription fee for WhatsApp.

A week ago, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Meta, had to lay off nearly 11,000 employees to ease the huge financial expenditure. The reason is that the highly anticipated Metaverse not only failed to make a profit but also lost millions of dollars. Even his own wealth fell from the top 5 in the world in 2021 to 25th.

In deep financial crisis, managers have to make difficult decisions. What Zuckerberg revealed about his instant messaging app will be the lifeline he has been looking for. And a few days ago, Zuckerberg informed Meta employees that both WhatsApp and Messenger will "drive the next wave of sales growth for the company." The move is to offset the losses brought by Metaverse.

“We talk a lot about very long-term opportunities like the metaverse, but the reality is that as we work to monetize WhatsApp and Messenger, these two are probably going to be the next big pillars of our business,” Zuckerberg told Reuters.

In this sense, Zuckerberg intends to integrate a subscription feature in his app, similar to how Musk will charge a verification fee for Twitter. Although the owner of Meta did not provide many details about the strategy it will follow, it is likely that advertising will be added to the platform, which means that members will enjoy exclusive features.

Currently, WhatsApp does not have a subscription-based premium version open to the public. However, a paid version of the platform is available only to certain accounts on a business plan, called "WhatsApp Business." This premium version includes the ability to generate a personalized link that can include the company name in the generated URL to share and start direct chats on the app.

WhatsApp Business users can change their link name once every 90 days as long as they maintain their Premium subscription. Once payments stop, anyone who decides to purchase can use the link name again.

On the other hand, those who have the premium version also have access to features dedicated to customer service. With a monthly subscription, up to 10 devices can be connected to better manage the direct messages received by the company.

Editor ✎Estella/

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