How about actually paying for the product, like it was when I signed up?

Weren't they profitable when they were charging 1€ a year per user before? I wouldn't mind going back to that.

Yea. I also find it hard to believe that WhatsApp wouldn't be profitable with $1 per user per year. There is a lot you can do with $2bil a year.

I think I read that Brian Acton called out Sandberg on that once. That it wasn't just about profitability, but greed.

They were supposedly charging that, but the first year was free, and then every time you were close to running out of free time you would get x more free months. I chained those free months for years until it became completely free. So it was actually free to use.

WhatsApp used to have paying customers.

Facebook and Whatsapp can absolutely exist and sustain itself if accounts were paid and cost a couple dollars per month.

So go back to charging a small fee. People used to pay it and with the network effect they still would.

public utility time!