[reitanqild]

Same with me.

I refuse to think Mark Zuckerberg

* bought it for north of USD10Bn

* made it free

* stopped all other monetization efforts (paid api gateways etc)

just to provide free messaging service to everyone.

I have two explanations:

* either he felt it was a threat to his future messenging monopoly

or

* (and this is already not a secret anymore) they wanted to feed the data into their already huge tracking and ad serving network.

Both of those are good enough reasons for me to leave as I care about healthy competition and my future privacy.

But maybe the biggest reason why is because they lied to me: they promised to be the service that provided a good messaging service in exchange for a modest fee. They were profitable and yet sold out.

[kbart]

Another possibility is that Zuckerberg's plans were destroyed (or at least delayed) by EU ruling[0], so he didn't get what actually expected.

0. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/18/facebook-fi...

[reitanqild]

?

You mean you agree he had an evil plan and it was thwarted?

[kbart]

"An evil plan" might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I think he might have expected more (read more private data or ad push) from WhatsApp users than he currently can get. Of course, that's just speculation, but as you've originally mentioned, it makes no business sense for Facebook to maintain a free messaging app with no strings attached.