Whatsapp & Skype.

[zabado]

I can call, text, send videos & photos and even have live video calls to my friends, who also have WhatsApp & Skype .
My question is Who pays for it ?.

[Buenchico]

As an analogy, antivirus companies (such as Avast and AVG) give away their basic product for free in the hope that at least some users will pay for the 'premium' versions. (i.e. those who pay for the full products are actually subsidising those who just use the free products). Skype uses a similar marketing model, whereby the basic services are free but they make their money from users who take up their 'premium' services:
https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA335/how-does-skype-make-money

Whatsapp used to charge $1 per year (after the first year) for its services but it's now looking to a new marketing model, whereby they 'connect users with businesses', with those businesses paying the costs. (i.e. it will be a form of advertising). It's not yet clear when that model will come into operation:
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/040915/how-whatsapp-makes-money.asp

[Guilbert53]

The answer "who pays for it" is that as all the data is going over Broadband and wi fi and mobile phone networks we are all paying for it when we sign up for Broadband or mobile data on our phones.

The companies we pay (Virgin, BT, Vodaphone etc) put in the various networks (broadband cables, mobile phone masts etc) using the money we give them to use their services.

The actual apps like Whatsapp and Skype do make some money as Buenchico says, from things we sign up for.

But nowadays having customers "signed up" is king. Once you have customers signed up (to any service) you can advertise to them and that makes a lot of money.

Look at Facebook, it costs nothing to use, but billions use it all over the world, because they can advertise to us while using it.

Over 1 billion people use WhatsApp yet it has never made a profit.

Facebook bought it for 19 BILLION dollars in 2014 which is not bad for a product that was only released in 2009 and never made a profit.

One way to get rich quickly is to "invent" a popular program or smartphone app and sell it to Microsoft, Google, Facebook etc.

[zabado]

Thanks gents that made interesting reading.