Those who do not pay for WhatsApp: stingy or victims?

WhatsApp is in the spotlight. The popular multiplatform messaging service has begun to massively charge all users whose account is expiring in order to extend the use of WhatsApp for another year. There are many users who see payment as something cheap and fair, but it also seems that there are many who are not paying and seem interested in looking for alternatives. Are the latter stingy? Is it only an economic question? Are all users who now have to pay for WhatsApp victims of payment difficulties?

And it is easy to say that those users who refuse to pay for the service are stingy, people who are not willing to spend less than one euro a year to use a service that has replaced the system that everyone used before, that of SMS messages, which cost about 15 cents. A common user, who did not use SMS much, easily spent more than WhatsApp costs per year in just one month. A user who did use SMS relatively frequently managed to spend the amount corresponding to the annual WhatsApp payment in just a few days. And a regular user could manage to exceed that amount in a day or in a few hours. For this reason, it is being heard a lot how users call exaggerated or even stingy or stingy those who are worried about having to pay for WhatsApp. However, not everything is what it seems.

Paying for WhatsApp is not so easy

It is not only about paying for WhatsApp, but about the payment method. Everyone knows how to go buy bread, ask for the amount we want, and give the clerk a few coins. Currency, that element that allows us to pay, a unit of exchange, of barter, that gives value to things and that has an existence in the real world and not the virtual one. However, the world of mobiles is not like that, there are no bakers that we can go to and pay to use WhatsApp, or at least, I do not know them. And, to pay for the WhatsApp subscription you have to use your credit or debit card, and here we find several problems. On the one hand, there are many users who do not want to give their bank details over the Internet. Although we can assure you that there will be no problems, it is understandable. And no matter how secure the payment system was, there will always be many users who are not used to paying online and who will prefer not to. For there is more, not all users have a credit or debit card. And it is that, one of the feats of WhatsApp is that it has managed to reach young people, adults and the elderly alike. Many young people, many adults, and many seniors do not have a credit or debit card. Could they have it? Yes, but we are already adding a complex step to continue using WhatsApp, much more complicated than downloading another app. They can also ask for help from a family member or friend who has a credit or debit card, but this is also more complicated and takes more time than downloading another application, not to mention that that person could find themselves in the initial situation of not wanting to give data Internet banking.

WhatsApp has not taken the necessary steps

Whose fault is it for what happens? From WhatsApp, undoubtedly. But not because of the fact that it became paid, which had already been announced from the beginning, but because it did not facilitate the process. An SMS payment system that allows users to pay by sending a message could have been a solution that would have made payment for the service available to all users. In fact, it is a request that many are making and that, without a doubt, they will be valuing. Hopefully they don't take too long. So far, we can say that many users are not stingy, but simply victims of a bad decision made by the company, which has decided to start charging everyone without even thinking about facilitating the payment method, something they should have had into account knowing the immense number of users who use WhatsApp.