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Yeah, I think former head of business at Whatsapp, who you're replying to, knows that.

I thought it was free to install and didn't charge $1 until the following year?

EDIT: looks like it was $1 on IOS and free everywhere else: https://venturebeat.com/2012/12/03/facebook-whatsapp-talks/

Knowing Apple, I expect that one dollar installation fee being pushed into their coffers, either directly (because the App Store is pay to play) or indirectly (because they force you to use Apple hardware to develop and push stuff onto the App Store)

right. Many around the world paid that 1$.

WhatsApp had 600M users. A dozen million people paying the $1 per year is many people. In the multiple threads about WhatsApp and the $1 charge, most people never paid anything. Looking at the revenue and everything, doesn’t seem like enough were paying.