Facebook buys WhatsApp: what are your thoughts?

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Scott Adam Gordon
  • Forum posts: 445

Oct 7, 2014, 10:30:50 AM via Website

Soooooo Facebook has closed the deal on its WhatsApp purchase for 19 billion dollars (which is roundabout my monthly salary), and I wanted to know what you guys thought of it? I read this on Forbes and I thought it was interesting:

WhatsApp makes money by charging a $1 a year subscription in a handful of countries that have clear carrier billing systems and where credit card penetration is high, bringing in about $20 million in annual revenue, according to Forbes’ estimates. That’s not enough to justify a $19 billion price tag, so Facebook is almost certainly looking at other ways the messaging service could make money.

I can see this being a worry for many people. As of right now, WhatsApp is fantastic value, one dollar per year for a service most of us use on a daily basis. With this Facebook takeover, it seems that this may change, somehow. Are the dreaded "in-app purchases" on their way to WhatsApp?

I don't know. Good news? Bad news? What do yo think?

— modified on Oct 7, 2014, 10:32:55 AM

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Loie Favre
  • Forum posts: 877

Oct 7, 2014, 10:36:49 AM via Website

Uh oh, this doesn't sound like good news for the end user. Sure, Facebook will continue to make a ton of money out of it. I'm wondering if people will start to ditch WhatsApp if Facebook starts making changes to it, just like it's happening with the Facebook app. I honestly see more ads there now then any of my friends' news and pictures, and it's pretty boring compared to a few years ago.

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