Facebook-owned WhatsApp has decided to go completely free, dropping the annual subscription fee of 99 cents that the company admitted was a failed business model. The popular messaging application, however, will remain free from advertisements. 

WhatsApp founder John Koum said this week that as the service becomes totally free to use, which takes effect immediately, spam and unwanted advertising will not begin to annoy users. The company intends to explore means to support its operation and Koum assured that WhatsApp will remain ad-free.

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"People might wonder how we plan to keep WhatsApp running without subscription fees and if today's announcement means we're introducing third-party ads. The answer is no," Koum was reported by Re/code as saying.

"We want to test new tools to make this easier to do on WhatsApp, while still giving you an experience without third-party ads and spam," the WhatsApp chief said.

In order to monetize its operation, WhatsApp is looking to replicate the same approach used by Facebook with the Messenger app - by connecting its millions of users to targeted business and organizations. Such effort could "end up being a massive multiplier on the value of the monetization," Re/code said on its report.

With WhatsApp now totally free to use, Koum is convinced that users worldwide will enjoy unhindered access to the service. He admitted that asking even a minimal fee from WhatsApp fans proved unsuccessful. Even as the charge is just under a dollar, the company realized that credit card use is not yet universal.

"We just don't want people to think at some point their communication to the world will be cut off," Koum said in explaining the welcome shift.

With one key barrier gone, WhatsApp expects its user-base to further explode, already numbering to nearly one million users, but Koum reminded that the payment option hard-coded on the application will take some to revise.

"We haven't written a single line of code yet," Koum said.

And users who have already paid for the 12-month subscription fee will unfortunately not recoup the payment. But they get the consolation of enjoying WhatsApp to the hilt and not paying another dollar in the many years to come.