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by kenshiro_o 4498 days ago
Can anyone put in numbers what the benefit is for FBK in paying so much for whatsapp? I just don't understand how a messaging company can be "worth" so much, even after extrapolating the expansion in user base.

Don't get me wrong - WhatsApp is a great product and very easy to use on top of that (using phone number as id is a great idea to onboard users in a very intuitive way). But I fail to see where this valuation is coming from.
2 comments
wellboy 4498 days ago
It's pretty much fear in my opinion. The main platform Facebook is already not cool anymore, so they have to buy cool things to stay cool.

Only problem is, if you're not cool and you acquire cool things, these things automatically become not cool. But we'll see.

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JetSpiegel 4498 days ago
That's why they keep them separated.

Kids won't read the small print, and if you read the small print then you don't see ads anyway, you're just a cost to them.

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rgovind 4498 days ago
Don't look at it as a messaging company. Look upon it as a communication company. Over the last 20 yrs, any company which has make communication with others easier has profited handsomely....eg Skype, mobile-phone operators.
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adventured 4498 days ago
That's not true.

ICQ turned out to be practically worthless. MSN Messenger, AOL Messenger, Yahoo Messenger. Those ended up not generating any meaningful business what-so-ever.

How do we know at this point that WhatsApp, Snapchat, et al. aren't going to end up in the same history bin?

How about webmail? Is Yahoo's email service worth $20 billion dollars? Is Gmail worth $20 billion? Nope.

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aestra 4497 days ago
I think every communication protocol is destined to eventually be replaced by another communication protocol.
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